Truck hits woman, 3 kids

A woman and three children were struck by a truck yesterday in an intersection near an Ewa Beach school where residents want traffic signals installed.

Six-year-old Nathan Mallari, a student at Holomua Elementary School, was hospitalized with a broken leg after the 7:20 a.m. accident on Iroquois Point Road at Keaunui Street.

His aunt was pushing a stroller with Nathan's sister and cousin in it when all four were hit by the pickup truck after it passed a stop sign to enter the intersection.

Police in Kapolei said one of the smaller children, Nathan's cousin, was also hospitalized. All four were reportedly in the crosswalk.

"With this kind crosswalk, every time they cross, I have a fear," Gil Mallari, Nathan's father, told KITV news.

The community has lobbied the city to install a signal because traffic has increased in the area, where there is extensive subdivision development.

The intersection was made a four-way stop only a year ago, said state Sen. Willie Espero (D, Ewa Beach).

Espero said Gentry Properties is committed to install a signal light, but delays in the city permitting process have pushed it back from 2006 to a 2007 completion date.

"This accident should act as a catalyst to move up the construction," Espero said. "This demonstrates that safety measures need to be built in the early phases of a development, not near the end."

Holomua Elementary School Principal Norman Pang told KITV that parents call him every week to complain about the danger to their children from speeding cars along the stretch of road.

"We are just lucky nobody died," Pang said. "It is going to keep happening again. Traffic is getting worse and worse, and until you put in a stoplight, people are not stopping at stop signs."