Tears wet his eyes and he wipes them with the back of a hand, knowing these young people will hear his story, but the words they'll really listen to are those of the young man whose actions killed his wife and daughter six years ago on a Florida roadway.

On stage for a moment together, they hug. Murakami and Justin Cabezas. The father and the teenager, now six years older, whose life has also been shattered by an impulsive moment of street racing that ended in a fiery crash and two deaths.

"I will never be a person who hasn't killed," said Cabezas, now a husky 25-year-old. He was lured into racing that day by someone next to him pumping his accelerator. "I will always have to live with what I did. That will always be part of me ... but without Mr. Murakami's forgiveness, I wouldn't be here."

It was one of the world's most wrenching safe-driving presentations — the personal stories of a father who has turned his grief and rage into a national movement to combat street racing, and the street-racer who killed that man's wife and daughter.

Four people were killed in the inferno of exploding gas tanks that morning after the cars piled into the flatbed at 90 mph as Koonce and his partner patrolled the road for rubbish before opening the Zipper Lane.

"All this happened because some people made some bad decisions," said Koonce, who escaped through his window as flames spread.

"They decided that night to drink. And they decided, according to witnesses, to stage a side-by-side race on a highway that was being used by others in a lawful manner."

While the Honolulu Police Department doesn't keep statistics on street racing, HPD traffic investigators acknowledge it's a problem.

"There's no question it's a concern," said Maj. Doug Miller, commander of the traffic division. "We've seen this come up in a few accidents where we believe racing was involved."

Miller said officers have been targeting areas where racing occurs late at night and he believes that has improved the situation. HPD programs encourage kids to race at an appropriate place —Hawai'i Raceway Park.

Some of the young people at yesterday's presentation said that every day they're challenged by other drivers to race.

"People drive behind you with their headlights flicking and come beside you and then take off," said 18-year-old Brysen Farm, who has raced occasionally. "I kind of got a little more wake-up call from this."

"At the stoplights they rev their motors," said 22-year-old Robert Rutherford who also admitted he has gone as fast as 130 mph in street races but stopped after a good friend was killed on the Mainland by a street racer earlier this year.

Statistics from Gordon Hong, the State Department of Transportation's highway safety coordinator, show that over the past four years an average of 40 percent of fatal Hawai'i crashes were related to speed, with 208 of the 524 crashes in which people were killed involving speed.

While street racing is almost epidemic nationwide, Murakami's "Safe Teen Driver" organization already has several state chapters and Murakami, who grew up in Hawai'i and graduated from Castle High, hopes another will be launched here.

He started the organization in Florida where his wife and daughter were struck and killed by Cabezas' speeding car in November 1998, but his message has swept the country on television news and talk shows as the two make appearances together.

"We have a twofold message," he said before yesterday's program. "One is making the right choices while you're driving and the other is about forgiveness."

For Murakami, the forgiveness came a step at a time. He urged the Florida attorney general to pursue and prosecute the case, and he was highly instrumental in getting Cabezas convicted of vehicular homicide.

But it was also Murakami who gradually came to realize sending the young man to prison for 30 years wasn't going to bring back his family. And when he met Justin face-to-face a week before trial, what he heard changed his heart.

"He said what I wanted to hear all along, that he was sorry," Murakami said. "For both of us, the weight of the world was lifted off our shoulders. It changed the whole dynamics of the way we felt about each other. I think he was relieved I wasn't going to come across the table and grab him and I was feeling the same way, that I didn't hate this kid.

"After we met I knew he was suffering as much as I was."

Murakami appealed to the court not for leniency, but for an alternate sentence of being part of a program to educate teenagers about street racing dangers.

"I knew if I sent him to prison he had no future at all," said Murakami. "It made no sense to send him to jail when he could be more effective talking to other teenagers. Justin had the power to make 'Safe Teen Driver' really work, to communicate with other teenagers and really make a difference.

"But I wanted him to take full responsibility for his actions. I wanted there to be something to remind him of the consequences of his actions."

When the sentence was issued — two years of house arrest, eight years of probation, 300 hours of community service as part of Murakami's campaign against street racing, and five years' license revocation — it was the beginning of a partnership that has already touched more than 10,000 teenagers in personal presentations around the country and millions more through the media.

Hearing the story yesterday was a sobering experience for many in the audience.

"It definitely made me think about it," said 15-year-old Brandon Ganal, who is learning to drive and has heard about street racing. "I wouldn't do it now," he said. "I wouldn't even think of it on the street."

For Cabezas, who says that fateful race in 1998 resulted from a momentary impulse, the 300 hours of community service have long since passed and he's as committed to the program as Murakami, whom he's come to think of as a surrogate father.

"I don't expect to be able to change all the people I talk to," he said. "Maybe just 10 percent get the message. But that to me is a major impact. Maybe that 10 percent wouldn't have gotten the message if I hadn't been there.

"By making the mistake maybe you learn to think more about your actions."