By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer

The Advertiser story yesterday that Hawai'i soon would have a million cars on (and off) its roads touched a nerve with some readers. Here are some of the responses:

I guess that figure makes O'ahu alone the biggest piece of parking concrete in the Pacific. It is a sad commentary on total auto dependence as we head for total gridlock.

Fortunately, I don't have to be a slave to the automobile, especially in such a beautiful place as Hawai'i, but for now (until common sense and logic prevail ) the majority of people are.

I ride TheBus (the ultimate and protective SUV) mostly in town and think of it as a chauffeur-driven stretch limousine.

Can you get word to the governor that building more highways will not solve our traffic problems?

The governor should educate the drivers to use mass transit, because they are the ones causing the traffic problems. There are so many single drivers only on the highway that is causing the gridlock.

(Lingle) needs to get cars off the highways by raising automobile taxes, auto registration, safety checks and other related cost for autos

to be on the highways. There should be a limit for autos per household.

You might want to suggest to the readers that those parties responsible for importing cars, as a business, be responsible to export the same number they bring in. Maybe some legislator will do something.

Not all the cars are on the road.

I live in Makiki, where people just store cars, never moving them. There is one man who has two (probably classic) cars that never move unless the police come to mark them. Now he has parked them so there is a good space between them, and all he has to do is rotate the wheels a bit to put the marking off.

We have two cars, and use both of them, so usually we must go far afield to park them. Too bad there isn't a clever way to charge "rent" to those people for storing their cars. Maybe a second (or third, etc.) car registered to the same address and apartment number could be charged a surtax when they register their vehicles.

For auto dealers, your story framed another reason we have pushed for streamlining the byzantine auto registration process.

The complex requirements on dealership title clerks relating to calculating Hawai'i's unique method of taxing mill-penny amounts on exact vehicle weights (with fluid weights added) and special rounding of numbers according to city rules has led to a bunch of unnecessary legal hassles. The process also slows down the registration process for O'ahu's motorists. It's a real problem.

We hope the city and the state will act on our suggestion this coming year to enact a simple flat-fee vehicle weight tax, like Alabama's (vehicles below 5,000 pounds, $80). Pretty simple.

We've suggested a flat motor vehicle registration fee of $60 for the City & County of Honolulu. It would equal the revenues of their new increase to 2 cents per pound on the weight tax. The average passenger vehicle is 3,000 pounds. So the average tax works out to $60 per vehicle for the county. Such a method would be much easier for everyone.

Reach Mike Leidemann at 525-5460 or mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.