Letters to the Editor

Stop desecrating our sacred cultural sites

Regarding the Feb. 15 article "Mauna Kea telescopes help find distant galaxy": Hawaiians always knew about the distant galaxies. Hawaiians always knew the Earth was round. You can find all the information in the kumulipo, the Hawaiian theory of evolution.

Western science with all its modern technology is still living in the neolithic time zone. It still treats indigenous science like the Spanish conquistadors when they plundered the indigenous world in the name of Christianity and Western domination. Desecrating Hawaiian cultural sites in the name of Western science is genocide. Western astronomers and archaeologists think nothing of destroying indigenous cultures for their scientific research.

Stop desecrating our Hawaiian sacred cultural sites. Keep off Haleakala, Mauna Kea and all Hawaiian sacred sites.

We need to focus on racing, pedestrians

I was amused Tuesday morning to see reference to a letter stating that California drivers obey speed limits. First of all, speed limits in California are much more realistic; freeway speed limits are usually 65 to 70 mph instead of the 55 or occasional 60 here, and streets in California that have 45- or 50-mph speed limits are equivalent to streets here that have 25-mph speed limits. In most cases, drivers drive at the speed they want to, and speed limits are set at that speed.

In Hawai'i, speed limits are so artificially low that drivers get used to flouting them even while driving at a safe speed.

I must, however, add that the speed of traffic on open freeways in California with posted speed limits of 65 mph is usually between 75 and 85, so there is a significant amount of speeding going on there, too.

The problem here is racing, not speeding per se. Every weekend night on H-3 near the Marine base in Kane'ohe, one can hear the motorcycles racing, and in the daylight one can see the skid marks from their starts covering the pavement. All that is needed is enforcement, with possible confiscation of racers' vehicles.

Deter speeding by seizing cars, taxing

My colleague and I had an insightful conversation the other day concerning the traffic accidents in Hawai'i this past week. We talked about what type of solutions the state can create to deter speeding offenders.

One that I really liked was the seizure of the speeders' cars. The state can really bring down the hammer and stop speeding by taking the cars away. Not only take them away, but auction them off, too.

It may sound unfair to some people, but is speeding worth a person's life? If someone is caught going 20 mph over the speed limit, that person should be risking having his or her car taken away and losing it forever. And by selling the cars, the state could ease some of the financial problems it currently has, like paying the police officers their raises or paying to have abandoned cars removed. Then the public wouldn't have to carry the burden of paying more taxes.

I also thought about another solution to help the state address the people who are not paying their traffic tickets. If people don't pay their tickets, raise their vehicle weight tax. And the tickets can range from speeding tickets, parking tickets and others. Do what the insurance companies do. When you get into an accident, your premium rises. So if you don't pay your traffic tickets, your vehicle weight tax rises.

Some states are already doing this. Speeding has killed too many people.

Road improvements for West Hawai'i needed

Regarding the informative "Stryker may add a twist to Saddle Road upgrades" (Feb. 16): It is ironic that they broke ground on the $50 million first phase of a $220 million Saddle Road upgrade effort that in "1994 served 900 vehicles per day" while no road improvements for West Hawai'i, which sits in near gridlock at times, have broken ground.

The state highway (190) that the new Saddle Road will connect to on the west side is unsafe because it has no shoulders or guardrails and connects to an even more unsafe county Palani Road. The state has plans to build a connector highway to the Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway (19) from the new Saddle Road junction at 190, but the question is, when?

Sen. Inouye believes the project will create more of a psychological bond between east and west Hawai'i and the potential for development "will grow geometrically." However, use projections for the Saddle Road may never occur considering you have to climb to the 6,500-foot elevation and it's very often thick with fog.

Finally, if the intent is to shorten the drive, why is the second section to be built (after the section going through the Army base) on the Hilo side? Millions have been spent on the Hilo side in the past decade realigning and repaving, as opposed to the west side of the Saddle Road, where not one foot has been repaved and where its realignment would shorten the trip the most.