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Honolulu Lite

CHARLES MEMMINGER


How junked cars materialize
on roadside is a mystery

Why is it that millions of people claim to have seen UFOs, yet no one ever sees a tow truck dumping a derelict car on the side of the road?

These rusting, abandoned hulks materialize overnight all over the island. There are three sitting within a five-minute walk from my house in Kaneohe. First there was one. Then, a few days later, another appeared. Then a third. They are like giant metallic mushrooms.

There is a lot of mystery that surrounds these abandoned cars. First of all, where do they come from? Most of the ones I see are undrivable. That means that a tow truck has to drag them to where they are eventually left. For a long time I suspected that the abandoned-car phenomenon was a scam by groups of tow-truck companies. I figured the same group of abandoned cars were hauled around to various places on the island. Tow Company A would get paid to pick a car off a street in, say, Kalihi. It would then dump the car in Kaneohe. Then Tow Company B would get paid to pick it up. That company would haul it out to Wahiawa and abandon it. Then a third company would be hired to get rid of it. Judging by the age of the vehicles involved, the same cars have been towed around and dumped since 1973. That's the way it seemed, anyway.

NOW WE KNOW that one tow company has a contract with the city to pick up abandoned cars. Abe's Auto Recycling gets a paltry $150 a car to haul the wrecks to one of its recycling lots. I say paltry because recycling a car is a messy business. You've got to drain the gas, oil, refrigerant and stow the battery and tires and God knows what else before the metal can be reclaimed.

There are two types of abandoned vehicles: rusty and very rusty. Just kidding. Actually, there are those cars that people abandon because they've just had it up to here by the car's attitude. You know, the engine conks out for the umpteenth time, and the owner simply walks away from it (after removing the license plates).

Then there are the stripped hulks that some lazy punks just need to get rid of, so they tow them to some isolated place at night and leave them on the side of the road.

I understand that frustration. I've had a few cars I would have liked to take out with a shoulder-launched missile. But the other guys, the guys who tow stripped cars to isolated places, I don't understand. You've got the car hooked up, why not just take it to a city dump?

It turns out it's because there is no city dump for abandoned cars. If you want to get rid of a car, you have to take it to a place like Abe's, where they might not charge you to take it off your hands. But then again, they might.

Not being able to leave your car at a city dump seems to be a fatal flaw in the system. It encourages people to fling them on the side of the road like 4,000-pound beer cans.

I suggest the city put a bounty on abandoned cars and set up some official dump sites. Then, anyone with towing rig or trailer hitch could haul the wrecks away and make a few bucks. It works with discarded aluminum cans. Give these wrecks some value, and they would disappear from our streets in a weekend. No mystery there, just enterprise.




Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com





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