Joan Grissom is Kaua'i’s fifth traffic fatality of the year. Last year, Kaua'i had a total of five traffic fatalities.

Kaua'i County spokeswoman Cyndi Mei Ozaki said Grissom was a passenger in a 1999 Honda driven by an 18-year-old Anahola woman that struck a 1990 Honda turning left from Kuhio Highway into Wailua Golf Course at 1:45 p.m. Grissom was thrown from the car and struck by a 2002 Honda coupe.

Grissom was pronounced dead at the scene, said Ozaki.

Two people from the 1990 Honda, including the 47-year-old Kuloa man who was driving, are at Wilcox Memorial Hospital in stable condition, said Ozaki. No other serious injuries were reported.

The fatality was the second on Kuhio Highway in six days. On Feb. 11, 78-year-old Amy Tamura died from injuries suffered when the car she was driving collided with another car turning off the highway near the Kaua'i Community Correctional Center.

The other fatalities on the Garden Island this year occurred last month. Tyson Pagador, 22, and a 17-year-old girl were killed Jan. 31 in a one-car crash on Po'ipu Road while Penelope Hardenburgh, 49, suffered fatal injuries when struck by a car in Kapa'a on Jan. 5.

On the Big Island, a head-on collision on Monday killed three people.

The collision occurred on the Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway about a mile north of the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai in North Kona.

Toru Kanda, 31, of Japan was killed when the Ford Mustang he was driving veered into the path of a Toyota Tacoma pickup truck at 9:15 p.m. A man and woman in the truck were also killed.

Big Island police identified the truck’s occupants as Frank Crumm, 53, of Holualoa and Christen Wright-Hill, 39, of Kailua.

Noriko Kanda, 32, whose husband was killed, is in good condition at Kona Community Hospital, police said.

Including Monday’s fatalities, five people have died on Big Island roadways since Saturday. The Big Island fatality count is seven as of Monday as compared to two on the same date last year.

On O'ahu, the Army today identified the third soldier killed in Friday’s three-vehicle collision on the H-1 Freeway as Sgt. John M. Surwill, 23, of Powell, Ohio. Surwill was an infantryman assigned to Company B, 2nd Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment.

The statewide fatality count for February stands at 18. There have been 29 total traffic deaths in Hawai'i in the first 48 days of the year as compared with 12 on the same date last year.