Other factors apply to pedestrian deaths

I, too, recently examined the data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System concerning pedestrian fatalities in fatal auto accidents, which served as a source for your Jan. 16 front-page report ("Most pedestrian deaths occur outside the lines").

While it is tempting to attribute Hawai'i's position in leading the country in pedestrian fatalities to poor driving habits, there are other factors that should be considered. In most parts of the United States, pedestrians are only on the roadways during part of the year. Hawai'i also has many people from cultures who still value walking, and we have many tourists who may not be as attentive as they would be in their hometowns.

This is not to say that our drivers do not need to be more careful, or that we could not use more crosswalks. But sometimes the most tempting explanation for a statistic is not the correct one. To support this argument, we need only look at the other end of the pedestrian fatalities list, where we find Massachusetts, the "safest" state in the United States for pedestrians.

As a transplant from Massachusetts, I can assure you that it is not the safest place in the country for pedestrians! The pedestrians there, however, know that the cars won't stop (or even slow down) for them (even if they are in crosswalks). They also are only on the roads for perhaps 25 percent of the year.

To call walking "the most deadly form of transportation in the country," as the Surface Transportation Policy Project does, is pure folly.

And let's not forget that (all other factors being equal) a habit of walking everywhere will likely lengthen your life, and a habit of driving everywhere will probably shorten it. Keep walking, Hawai'i!

Judicial nominees should be approved

Opposition to President Bush's renomination of candidates for the federal judiciary illustrates how "tone deaf" the liberal left is.

It was not just "evangelical" voters who elected Bush but ordinary citizens sick of unelected judges making social policy according to their personal ideology. Thanks should be given to a judiciary that imposes same-sex "marriage," permits partial-birth abortions and declares that Boy Scouts cannot use public parks. Special thanks should be given to the three Ninth Circuit judges who tried to remove "one nation under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance.

The obstructionists in the U.S. Senate are the ones who threaten Senate collegiality. Sen. Jeff Sessions, himself blocked from a federal judgeship in 1986, has stated: "The 20 individuals ... are not divisive candidates. Bill Pryor has the support of every major political figure in Alabama, black and white, Republican and Democrat. Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen was endorsed by every major newspaper in Texas. And California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown was re-elected with a higher percentage of votes than any other judicial candidate in California."

The nominees' defect: They reject lawmaking and setting policy from the bench and possess common sense and humility so obviously lacking in our judiciary.

Physician-assisted suicide is frightening

Please do not promote physician-assisted suicide. No matter how dignified and nice-sounding a name it may be given, it is a frightening change to Hawai'i's values and diminishes respect for life.

Though well-meaning, the advocates for this "choice" fail to recognize the harm in store for the vulnerable among us. Alarming abuses of this policy such as have occurred in the Netherlands are not what we wish to see in Hawai'i.

As a practicing physician in Hawai'i for more than 25 years, I know that true compassion for my patient at the end of life's journey is to care, to relieve pain and promote comfort, and to help my patient to take care of "last concerns." The moment I suggest such an action, much less encourage it, I have begun to abandon my patient and replace our mutual trust with anxiety and doubt.

No longer is suffering necessary. Comfort care services are in place throughout our state. Please allow your physician to remain faithful to our Hippocratic Oath, to "first, do no harm."

Oil drilling not end of world for Arctic

Lokemalia Moore (Letters, Jan. 17) is somewhat misguided in her belief that her friends, Robert and Jane Thompson, who live in the Arctic region will be damaged by oil drilling. She goes on to say that the caribou and other wildlife will disappear.

The Alaska oil pipeline was installed in the 1970s and runs for some 700 miles to the port of Valdez. If the drilling will be such a hardship on man and animals, how come the caribou and other wildlife are still living in the area 31 years after the pipeline was built?

The new oil fields will give us oil for more than the next 100 years. Now that will help reduce our dependency on foreign oil. So don't feel sorry for the Thompsons; go visit them and enjoy the caribou with them.

Constant degrading of U.S. is tiresome

Regarding the Jan. 16 letter by Bill Punini Prescott: Finally, there is hope for Hawai'i when I can read such uplifting words.

The constant degrading of the United States and living in the past by some of the Native Hawaiians have become no different from raising many teenagers. They, too, think the entire world owes them something and are looking for a free ride through life.

The United States is a great country with so many freedoms that are an honor to receive. Unfortunately, so many don't want to earn the right or the privilege of what the United States has to offer. They have become people who expect everything and have no pride. Living in the past has only become an excuse, not a mission.

Thank you, Mr. Prescott, for your wonderful and insightful letter. I will continue to read the Letters page and hope for more like the one you wrote.

Honor indeed granted

Regarding Gary H. Watanabe's Jan. 17 letter "Local boy honored overseas, but not here": I believe there is a park named for Herbert K. Pilila'au in Wai'anae by the elementary school.

Honolulu deterioration must be addressed

It had been four years since I visited Honolulu, and I was astonished at the degree to which your once-lovely city had deteriorated.

Though I stayed in Waikiki, I had friends and relatives in the residential community whom I also visited. Waikiki was beautiful with even more beautification projects coming up. But the Third World appearance and condition of your neighborhoods make it look like your City Council or mayor cares only about tourists, at the expense of the residents.

Besides the crowding, traffic, noise and ramshackle appearance, in a single day I counted 11 mattresses, two toilets, five or six piles of broken wood furniture, several couches and chairs and more roadside junk.

A huge pile of junk was there when I first visited a friend, and not only did the pile grow daily, but it was still there three weeks later. From her window in her $400,000 condominium, I could see at least three more piles of roadside junk.

Somebody — I don't know who — should be ashamed. Ho-nolulu is truly a mess, and it had better be cleaned up and kept that way lest it soon become but a small step better than a slum.

Hemmings' solution to traffic won't work

This is in response to Fred Hemmings' undisclosed low-cost, immediate solutions to traffic congestion that he made in his opening-day speech at the Legislature. Why do we have such a serious traffic problem? The answer lies in only two words: poor planning.

Planning implies integrating the future. Mr. Hemmings suggests that quick, cheap Band-Aid fixes are the solution. The conditions of our roads, including congestion, are a direct result of the planning strategies — or lack thereof — of him and his ilk.

The quantity and quality of our family time is greatly affected by traffic congestion. A rail system is a solution based on people, not cars. A round-trip commute for two working people that takes an hour a day, with no stress, adds up to a heck of lot in terms of value. Mr. Hemmings, what do you value?

Dividing population into two groups isn't justice

It seems that each week The Advertiser carries a big article written by an attorney employed by or associated with the Hawaiian activists or by a member of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs whose salary is dependent on continuing the pursuit of the Akaka bill. The Sunday commentaries by Beadie Dawson and Bill Meheula, both attorneys dependent on the Hawaiian victims movement, are cases in point.

After rewriting Hawaiian history to their particular slant, the authors make the plea that "justice" be given to the Hawaiians for what they suffered and continue to suffer. The "justice" is always the same: Give us our ceded lands back, give us our exclusive programs, give us our own nation so we can make our own laws.

How is this justice? The ceded lands that we all enjoy today never belonged to the Native Hawaiians; they belonged to the monarchy, the government of Hawai'i, which included members of all races and ancestries who were citizens of the kingdom. When that government changed from the monarchy to a republic to a territory and eventually to a state, the lands continued to belong to all people, not just those of native blood.

The movement to receive federal recognition through the Akaka bill is simply a money grab to take back the ceded lands from all the people of the state for the exclusive benefit of those with the correct blood quantum and ancestry. Along with the ceded lands come the ceded land revenues, about $40 million per year, that would quickly rise as state buildings long ago built on ceded lands are then taxed by the new Hawaiian nation. The money would come from all other programs that help people of all races.

Over $1 billion has come out of the state treasury to pay for settlements to the Hawaiian Home Lands and OHA, not including annual appropriations for other programs serving only Hawaiians.

If it is indeed justice that is wanted and not just money, why has there never been a discrimination lawsuit filed? Dividing our great ethnic blend into two groups, those with the correct blood and those without, would not be justice for anyone.

Hybrid buses are fuel efficient

I read Mike Leidemann's recent column ("Buses show not all hybrids are equal," Jan. 11) and feel compelled to respond to the information about GM's hybrid propulsion system for buses, which is a parallel hybrid system, and its performance against a series hybrid-powered bus.

Mr. Leidemann indicates that the "series" hybrid is more efficient than the parallel hybrid technology GM has developed for transit buses. General Motors would be very interested in seeing the test results that concluded this because our test results proved the parallel hybrid system that GM has developed to be more fuel-efficient.

GM conducted extensive in-use testing comparing our parallel hybrid system with the series hybrid system. The GM parallel hybrid system outperformed the series system in all evaluation duty cycles and provided better fuel economy than the series system. In fact, the results of these findings were presented at a Society of Automotive Engineering Conference in 2001.

The bottom line is that GM's hybrid propulsion systems for buses are performing exactly as we expect them to perform — providing significant fuel economy improvement, dramatically lower emissions and many other benefits, including superior torque and better acceleration than conventional diesel buses, and operation sound levels equal to passenger cars even in tunnels.

Mr. Leidemann's article states, "Transit officials across the nation said the buses with GM powertrains generally save only 10 percent to 20 percent in fuel costs. At those rates, the buses are unlikely to generate enough savings to pay for their cost, which is sometimes as much as $200,000 over standard buses."

Unfortunately, Mr. Leidemann failed to acknowledge facts published by Ron Sims, King County executive for the Transit Authority, where 213 GM hybrid-powered buses are currently ferrying passengers in Seattle, Wash. In his statement, published on their Web site, Mr. Sims indicated, "Metro's review of ongoing performance and fuel efficiency shows these hybrid buses are an excellent investment." Mr. Sims cites that Seattle needed a bus that could operate in the bus tunnel, and the alternative to the hybrid was a dual-mode bus that would have cost Metro $1.6 million. "That's almost $1 million more than the cost of our hybrid bus," he said. "We are also seeing a significant savings in maintenance costs. Next year, we will save $3 million in maintenance costs for the tunnel fleet."

Independent third-party laboratory tests using standardized tests (Society of Automotive Engineering test standard, J-2711 Central Business District [CBD] procedure for city traffic conditions) indicate the GM hybrid bus propulsion system improves fuel economy by 60 percent for a 40-foot urban transit bus.

In the real world, buses operate on many different cycles, some of which are similar to the CBD test procedure and others can be very different. Real-world experience with the GM hybrid propulsion system for buses has delivered fuel economy improvement results typically greater than 20 percent and on some cycles as high as 55 percent.