Posted on: Wednesday, March 12, 2003

Two killed by vehicles trying to pass

By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer

Two men were killed in an 18-hour period in separate head-on collisions caused by drivers trying to overtake other vehicles on O'ahu roadways.

The victims were not the drivers trying to pass.

Fifty-year-old Manuel Eugenio of Waipahu died Monday at Kapi'olani Medical Center-Pali Momi after being injured in a 4:12 p.m. collision between two Toyota pickup trucks on Kamehameha Highway, just west of Kuala Street in Pearl City.

Eugenio was driving east when his vehicle was struck by a pickup truck that had veered off the westbound roadway, police said.

According to investigators, the driver of the second truck, a 20-year-old Waialua man, apparently lost control of his truck while attempting to pass from the left lane. He was in guarded condition yesterday with multiple fractures at The Queen's Medical Center.

On Sunday night in Waimanalo, the 57-year-old man rider of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle was killed when a Ford Thunderbird attempting to pass a pickup truck on Kalaniana'ole Highway veered into his path near Bell Street.

The medical examiner's office has yet to positively identify the victim.

Speed appeared to have been a contributing cause in both collisions, police said. Alcohol may have been a factor in the Waimanalo accident.

With Sunday's death, four people have been killed this year on Kalaniana'ole Highway in Waimanalo.

O'ahu's traffic fatality total for the year now stands at 17.

Meanwhile, a 78-year-old man remained in critical condition at Queen's after a crash Monday in which his car veered into the path of a city bus on North School Street near Kamehameha IV Road.