Haiku hairpin turn called recipe for tragedy
Some suggest that better lighting might prevent future crashes
HAIKU, Maui » Neighborhood residents said the pickup truck that dropped 140 feet into a gulch is not the first vehicle to go off the road near a hairpin turn in rural Haiku.
In Saturday night's accident, all six girls riding in the truck survived the plunge over an embankment along Kaupakalua Road near Lepo Street. A 14-year-old girl who was pulled from under the truck by friends was admitted to Maui Memorial Medical Center, a friend said. She was able to have visitors Sunday.
"She's all right. She was talking. She was comprehending. She was smiling and laughing," said Apalo Kemfort, a friend who visited her and was at the scene of the accident in a different vehicle.
Kemfort said the teenage girls, all of them King Kekaulike High School students, had left a football game and were riding in the truck to a friend's house when it went off the road.
Police Capt. Milton Matsuoka said the cause of the accident was under investigation.
Kemfort said the driver later told him she was having brake problems.
The vehicle went over an embankment where there is no guardrail, and down a wooded ravine where its descent was apparently slowed by tall grass and tree branches.
Kemfort said better lighting and an extended railing might have halted the vehicle from going down the gulch.
Resident Fran Gonzaga said her family's parked vehicles have been hit on three separate occasions in the past 14 years by vehicles that have failed to negotiate the hairpin turn -- with one pickup truck coming to a stop at the front door.
"That's how bad the turn is," Gonzaga said.
A traffic sign tells drivers to slow to 10 miles an hour about 150 feet before the hairpin turn. But the yellow double line separating the two-lane highway has been worn off at the hairpin turn.
Residents said it is difficult to see where the road begins and ends on dark nights.
Gonzaga said there should be a light or two to help drivers, especially those who are unfamiliar with the road.
"I think there should be something, maybe one or two lights. It might help," she said.
Since January, she said, there have been four or five vehicles that have gone off the road, but none had plunged into the ravine.
A resident who declined to be identified said there should be better markings on the road, and she would hate for any youths to die in an accident.
"We're just thankful they're all alive," she said.