Kokua Line June Watanabe

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Commercial vehicles can park 4 hours

Question: What are the rules regarding large commercial vehicles parked on city streets? We work on Leokane Street in Waipahu, and we are constantly getting ticketed for parking violations, e.g. parking too close to a curb/driveway or parking in a no parking zone. However, there are numerous large commercial vehicles parked all along Leokane Street that take up a good portion of the street parking and these vehicles are parked there for days without moving. When the police ticket our cars, they never seem to ticket these commercial vehicles. The owners of these businesses seem to use the street as their private parking lot. Is this fair?

Answer: "The beat officer responsible for Leokane Street will take enforcement action," said Honolulu police Capt. Ron Bode, of the Pearl City Station.

He pointed to Section 15-16.6 of the city traffic code, which says it is unlawful for a commercial vehicle to park in the same public space for more than four hours without moving.

This pertains to commercial vehicles that have a gross vehicle weight of 10,000 or more pounds or are 20 feet long or longer.

The exceptions are public utility vehicles or construction vehicles actively engaged in repair or construction work, or vehicles actively being used to unload goods or merchandise.

Q: Do you know if and when the Honolulu Police Department will be doing its auto glass VIN (vehicle identification number) etching service again?

A: Nothing currently is scheduled.

A police spokeswoman told us last year (Kokua Line, Feb. 27, 2005) that the service is scheduled "from time to time."

You are advised to check HPD's Web site at www.honolulupd.org for future dates.

Think Recycling

A couple of months ago, I wrote to you asking if any charitable organization was accepting encyclopedias. I called several charities and none would accept them for donation. You suggested asking libraries but my chances were slim since the books were over 10 years old. My last resort was to slowly throw them away in our rubbish bin as suggested, but I tried one last resort -- a free ad in a family magazine distributed free all over the island. I received over 10 calls. I'm glad that I got to donate the books to someone who could use them instead of filling our rubbish bins. -- Janice

Readers, we also suggest two other options -- the Honolulu Star-Bulletin's classifieds section or the Freecycling Web site.

The Star-Bulletin is offering free three-line ads for seven days to people giving away anything. In fact, the ads are free to anyone selling something, as well. There are restrictions. Call 524-STAR (7827).

The Freecycling Web site -- www.freecycling.com -- is another way to possibly recycle unwanted books and goods (see Kokua Line, Oct. 5, 2005). The Honolulu site is groups.yahoo.com/group/FreecycleHonolulu.