Older cars exempt
from seat belt law

Answer: You don't have to install seat belts.

Even though state law requires driving with seat belt fastened, it doesn't hold if your car was manufactured without seat belts before 1968.

Federal Standard 208, on "Occupant Crash Protection," requires passenger cars to have seat belts as of Jan. 1, 1968.

But if you own a vehicle that was manufactured before the federal government required manufacturers to install seat belts, you do not need to install seat belts to drive the vehicle, according to Scott Ishikawa, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation: "That was the intent of the Legislature when the (state) bill was heard."

Asked about the "Click It or Ticket" campaign, co-sponsored by the Transportation Department to encourage seat belt usage, Ishikawa said police officers should know about the exception for older vehicles.

Lt. Bennett Martin of the Honolulu Police Department's Traffic Division confirmed Ishikawa's statements.

Therefore, officers should not be issuing citations for seat belt violations for vehicles manufactured before the federal standard for seat belt usage took effect, Martin said.

Ishikawa added that "if a person was to get a ticket for being unbelted in one of these older cars, he or she would win the case in court."

But he also pointed out that some older vehicles have seat belts that were installed as optional equipment by the manufacturer. "If a person is cited in an old vehicle that has belts, the person would have to pay the ticket," he said.

Ishikawa explained that both state and federal laws were meant to motivate people to use seat belts already in their vehicles, not to require adding them if they were not installed. Motorists initially were eligible for a 10 percent insurance discount if their vehicle had seat belts, he said.

Hawaii law requires anyone riding in the front, and those 17 and under riding in the back, to use seat belts. The fine for not doing so is $92.

Q: The H-3 freeway signs have been hidden by overgrown brush at least since March, making it difficult for visitors going to the Windward side. I called the Department of Transportation and was told then it would be taken care of. Here it is mid-July and nothing has been done. Can you help?

A: You should see some improvement soon if not by now.

The landscaping and maintenance contractor for the H-3 freeway has begun removing the plant overgrowth -- mainly hau bushes, a Transportation Department spokesman said.

The work should be completed by early August.

To prevent this from happening again, the Highways Division has "added additional language to existing landscaping contracts to ensure compliance in these areas," the spokesman said.

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