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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Tuesday, June 12, 2001

Kahalu'u car crashes draw attention

By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Windward Bureau

KAHALU'U — The grinding sound of an automobile undercarriage on an asphalt curb is familiar to Lance Lackey, who has come to expect an accident outside his Kahalu'u home whenever he hears that noise.

Lackey's house sits on a curve on Kamehameha Highway between Wailehua and Waihe'e roads, just north of the Hygienic Store, and on many occasions he has rendered aid to victims of automobile accidents. The sights have horrified him, he said.

Last year, a van traveling toward Kane'ohe struck the mauka curb, flew across the highway and hit a utility pole on the makai side of the road so hard that the pole sheared at the bottom, he said. A baby and the front-seat passenger crashed through the windshield. The baby, who was seated on the lap of the passenger, struck the art gallery building next to Lackey's home.

Everyone survived, Lackey said, but "I had to come out and calm them all down. It's a horrid mess to have to come out here and go through that ... literally about once a month."

Recently, he helped pull a 70-year-old woman out of a car that had jumped an eight-inch curb and overturned in a stream. He said he has helped three other people who crashed into the stream in the year and a half he has lived there.

Speed and a high curb are factors in these accidents, Lackey said. He has turned to the neighborhood board for help.

The board will address the highway's safety at its next meeting at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at KEY Project, 47-200 Waihe'e Road. A representative of the state Department of Transportation has been invited.

Board members Daniel Bender, John Reppun and John Piper along with Sen. Bob Nakata and Bob Mon from city councilman Steve Holmes' office met with Lackey last week.

The board should urge the state to fix the bridge as soon as possible, Reppun said. The others suggested things that could be done now to improve safety, including setting up speed traps and removing commercial signs that block the view of a sign warning drivers about the curve.

The stretch of road near the stream has had 22 accidents in four years, Reppun said he learned from the police.