Posted on: Monday, July 1, 2002

North Shore puzzled by junked-car plague

By Will Hoover
Advertiser North Shore Writer

Abandoned cars litter the intersection of Kamehameha Highway and Marconi Road. They disappeared when the city resumed towing abandoned cars last month — only to be replaced by three more days later. Richard Ambo • The The Honolulu Advertiser . . . The number of derelict and abandoned vehicles on O'ahu has dropped dramatically in the past decade, city officials said, mostly because more people are donating their old cars to charity. According to statistics compiled by the City and County of Honolulu, O'ahu's Central District — which includes the North Shore — accounts for the smallest percentage of the 5,731 derelict and abandoned vehicles the city hauled away last year. • Central District (Mililani to North Shore): 413 • Honolulu: 2,657 • Leeward (Pearl City to Wai'anae): 1,741 • Windward (Waimanalo to Kahuku): 920

The North Shore has fewer abandoned and derelict cars than anywhere on O'ahu — approximately 7 percent of the 6,000 annual total — according to statistics compiled by the City and County of Honolulu.

But North Shore folks know what they see with their own eyes — and lately it's been a rust bucket dumping ground of crisis proportions along Kamehameha Highway between Hale'iwa and Kahuku.

It's a vehicular contradiction that begs an answer. Some here believe they've got one that is a combination of recent plantation history, changing times and those who have learned to exploit the system.

Other residents would like to know who's dumping all these junk heaps, and what's being done to catch and fine them.

"Why isn't someone attempting to locate the owners of these vehicles and fining them, as provided in the Hawai'i Revised Statues?" said Zane Clark in a letter to the editor after a story about how the city had not picked up abandoned vehicles for two months while it tried to iron out its differences with a towing contractor.

The city, which began towing abandoned vehicles again late last month, said it does try to locate the owners — provided they have not left the state or obliterated their connection to the abandoned or derelict car.

By the city's own figures, approximately half of all the rattletraps found rotting along O'ahu roadsides are not ticketed.

Spokeswoman Carol Costa said the city's Abandoned Vehicles Division doesn't have the enforcement power to go to a registered vehicle owner's home and slap them with a warrant. But she said suspected violators are notified by mail of when they are to appear in court.

"If the car has a vehicle identification number or a license number, it can be cited," said Costa. "The statute says that once cited, the vehicle's registered owner is subject to fines up to $1,000."

State Judiciary spokeswoman Marsha Kitagawa said the initial fine is $155, and violators have 15 days to pay it before the fine escalates to $180.

If the owner goes to court, the judge can either lower or raise the penalty. Kitagawa said the majority whose cars are ticketed pay the $155 fine.

Dennis Kamimura, licensing administrator for the city, said the city has two to five days to remove a vehicle once it has been marked abandoned or derelict.

But he said it can take time to decide whether a car is actually abandoned or part of a turf squabble among neighbors in an area with limited parking, which often turns out to be the case.

Kamimura said it would be difficult to ascertain how much money and hours the city spends to deal with abandoned and derelict vehicles, in part because both the Abandoned Vehicles Division and Honolulu Police Department are authorized to investigate vehicle complaints.

In fiscal 2001, the city cited 2,812 abandoned or derelict vehicles on O'ahu, or roughly half the number the city hauls away every year, Costa said.

As for the other half, in most cases their license tags and VINs have been removed, said Costa. "In other words, the person is leaving or abandoning the vehicle in a manner that it cannot be traced."

The implication is that such a vehicle has been abandoned in that manner because it was involved in some illegal operation, as with chop shops that strip stolen or unregistered autos and then dump them on public property so taxpayers can pick up the towing tab.

According to Capt. Jose Gaytan of the HPD Traffic Division, it's not easy to erase a VIN number. He said authorities have ways to determine a vehicle's registered owner even when visible VINs have been scratched out. Nevertheless, some professional car thieves know how to obliterate all traces of a vehicle's owner.

Gaytan said that before issuing the ticket on a forsaken auto, police try to determine whether it has been stolen or has had its VIN defaced, which is a misdemeanor. That information is turned over to HPD's Criminal Investigations Division, he said.

In many cases CID is able to find the registered owner. If it learns who stole or defaced a vehicle's VIN, that person can be, and usually is, cited.

None of that explains the discrepancy between Costa's North Shore stats and the spectacle on a recent Friday of more than a dozen discarded junk heaps lining the 12 miles of highway between Hale'iwa and Kahuku.

Larry Jefts, a vegetable grower who leases 400 acres on the North Shore, said there's a reason why the area appears to have a disproportionate number of derelict and abandoned vehicles, even though the numbers don't bear that out.

The once-huge vehicle dumping grounds has dwindled by thousands of acres since Dole shut down its sugar plantation in 1997, Jefts said.

Before that, the North Shore cane fields were wide open to recreational hikers, horseback riders — and anyone who wanted to ditch an unwanted clunker.

After plantation days ended, farmers such as Jefts were forced to install locked metal gates across the entrances of access roads to the cane fields to keep out produce thieves.

Today, virtually all roads leading to the cane fields are closed. And with thousands of no-longer-accessible acres on one side and the deep blue sea on the other, abandoned and derelict cars end up conspicuously clogging the narrow corridor of public land between Ka'ena Point and Kahuku.

So while there may be fewer of the cars, Jefts said, they are 10 times as noticeable.

"We no longer can keep our front gate open, even when we're there working, because someone will slip in and drop something off," he said. "It's a shame. It's fortress mentality, and I regret that we're involved in it."

Area resident Tim Haverly agrees. He said there are backyard mechanics in the area who operate private junk yards and simply wait for the city to come in and do their dirty work.

"Every week or so they drag one or two out to the side of the road, so the city is forced to haul them off as derelicts," Haverly said. "Soon as one gets towed away, they bring out more. Right now we've got part of one car, part of one truck and a car engine sitting by the side of Waialua Beach Road. It's ridiculous."

Haverly's concerns were highlighted shortly after the city removed all the offending wrecks between Hale'iwa and Kahuku — including a disastrous three-derelict pileup beside the intersection of Kamehameha Highway and Marconi Road.

The three derelicts vanished, only to be magically replaced days later with three more bent and rusting crates.

The irony, said Costa, is that much of what's done under cover of darkness is not necessary. Car owners need only take the title and license tags of cars they want to junk to any satellite city hall and fill out a form verifying ownership owner and legal registration.

"And we will have our tow contractor come to their house and pick up it up," Costa said. "There's no fee for this — doesn't cost a thing.

"What could be simpler?"