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Big money
accident judgments
put onus on roads

Two Big Island cases spotlight
how highways haven't kept up
with the times, or the speed

---

By Rod Thompson
Star-Bulletin

HILO -- Two recent court verdicts show Big Island roads aren't keeping up with the accelerating pace of the Big Island lifestyle, Mayor Harry Kim says.

On Tuesday, a jury awarded $3.3 million to be divided between the families of Daison Morita and John Gallagher.

Morita was killed in a 1998 head-on collision on Saddle Road in which his car struck Gallagher's.

Passing at that spot was permitted at the time, but road stripes were later changed to ban it.

Earlier this month, Judge Riki May Amano awarded Franklyn Castro the same amount, $3.3 million, for a 1988 one-car accident on the Keaau-Pahoa Road.

Castro's car ran off the road where there were no guard rails, leaving him a quadriplegic.

"The infrastructure has not kept up with the lifestyle of Hawaii," Kim said. People are driving faster. "They want to get there in a rush."

Kim is asking police to make a list of the most hazardous and congested roadways, keeping in mind that improvements take money.

Lawyers in the two cases said a few hundred dollars of paint in the Morita-Gallagher case and a few thousand dollars of guardrails could have saved the victims misery and the county money.

The Morita-Gallagher accident took place at night. Kim said in bygone days a person could drive Saddle Road at night and not see another driver the whole time.

Few people, such as hunters, used the road, and they knew its twists and turns, he said.

"Nowadays the Saddle is heavily used," he said.

Ginny Aste, of the Puna Traffic Safety Committee, says a similar situation exists on the Keaau-Pahoa Road.

"People still treat it as a country road. It's not. It's a high speed , narrow highway," she said.

Both roads were slated for improvements which were then delayed.

In the 1980s, Mayor Dante Carpenter began modest improvements on the Saddle Road.

By the 1990s, plans evolved into a $165 million Federal project. Actual construction has been delayed year after year.

On Keaau-Pahoa Road, a construction contract was approved a few years ago, Aste said.

Then it was learned that the low-bidder wasn't hiring the necessary percentage of women and minority subcontractors, and the project has been stuck in court since then, she said.

The drivers themselves were not blameless in the accidents. A jury found Morita 21 percent responsible for trying to pass in the dark. Judge Amano found Castro, who either fell asleep or was drinking, 40 percent responsible.