Editorials
Wednesday, December 18, 1996
Riding in truck beds
should be banned
THE death of a 14-year-old girl who was thrown from a pickup truck in Kailua has revived the proposal to ban riding in truck beds. To its shame, the Legislature has ignored this proposal in the past. It should do so no longer.
Rep. Barbara Marumoto, who plans to introduce legislation in the next session, notes that bills are introduced year after year, but they "hit a stone wall." She observes that the state requires seat belts to be worn in cars and mandates that dogs in the back of pickups be tethered, "yet we allow kids to bounce around."
One such kid, Dina Akiona, a Kailua High School freshman, was thrown from a pickup Friday and fatally injured. Five other people have died this year in Hawaii while riding in truck beds. These numbers are small compared to the total of auto fatalities, but only because relatively few people are foolhardy enough to ride in truck beds, where they have no protection.
It makes no sense to require people riding in cars and truck cabs to wear seat belts while letting people ride in truck beds. The argument that people in rural areas can't afford to have enough vehicles to transport their families and must rely on pickup trucks has been irresponsibly accepted by state legislators. Rural or urban, rich or poor, people's lives have the same worth and deserve the same protection.
A dozen states and territories have some sort of pickup-bed prohibition. The only prohibitions in effect in Hawaii have to do with standing in a pickup and keeping the tailgate closed.
Out of fear of antagonizing some voters, the legislators have shirked their duty. It's time they did what is right and acted to save lives by banning riding in truck beds.
Mideast peace
SINCE the Israeli government's opening of an ancient tunnel near a religious site triggered widespread fighting between Jews and Arabs in September, an uneasy peace has prevailed. But negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians have gotten nowhere, and relations are heating up again. The time has come for the United States to press both sides harder to cool their rhetoric and get on with the peace process.
Access to records
RARELY has an effort to shield the public from government records been as clumsy and absurd as passage of a 1990 state law aimed at doling out access to voter registration records. U.S. District Judge David Ezra has properly struck down the law's implementation on the Big Island, and other county officials in the state should promptly abide by his ruling.
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