LIHUE – The sun had just risen Tuesday morning, but that didn’t stop students, staff and faculty from Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School from spreading their message to passerby.
Waving signs that read, “watch for pedestrians day and night, put it (cell phones) down” and “no need for speed,” the middle school students were enthusiastic about spreading their message to Kauai drivers.
That message: “Drive with aloha!”
Driving and walking safely is all about having a positive attitude. That’s what 13-year old Aubrey Bechard said Tuesday as she participated in the event.
“I want to make sure that my sisters and my friends and family are all safe while driving and they can walk the street without being hit or hurt,” she said.
Pedestrian safety starts by looking both ways to ensure ones own safety, Bechard said.
“Also, if I’m with someone and they’re texting, I can encourage them not to text while driving,” she said.
Bechard said adults can practice safe driving by not speeding, making eye contact with drivers.
“Everyone should stay safe and have an awesome day,” she said.
On Kauai this year, there was a hit-and-run accident that killed 24-year-old Florentino Maipi of Eleele, and just this past weekend there was a deadly motorcycle accident that killed two individuals. In January, 12-year-old Chiefess Kamakaheli Middle School student Arayza Sabay was hit and left on the side of the road, but has made a recovery.
Student Government President Jereson Dikilato, 14, of Koloa, said the event was important because there are many students at Chiefess who cross the street during the day to get to the shopping complex across from the school.
“You hear about all these things in the news about people getting run over, pedestrians. I think to promote traffic safety in our schools is very important,” he said.
Pedestrians need to be sure to look both ways before crossing the street, and drivers need to be sure to drive the speed limit, Dikilato said.
“The school speed limit. Especially when the lights are flashing,” he said.
Wearing a bright orange vest with reflectors during the event, Lance Rae, who works at Walk Wise Hawaii, the Department of Transportation’s pedestrian safety outreach campaign said they along with DTRIC Insurance were there to help the students raise awareness about pedestrians.
“So far this year we’ve had about 36 fatalities across the state and we’re here to remind drivers to slow down and pay attention to pedestrian behavior,” he said.
The number one thing drivers need to remember when their on the road is that sometimes pedestrians can be hidden by a stopped vehicle, Rae said.
“Many times on a multi-lane street you’ll have the first vehicle stopping at a mid-block crosswalk or just anywhere in the street for a pedestrian and there’s a tendency for drivers behind not to see that pedestrian drive around and hit them,” he said.
But on Kauai, there aren’t many multi-lane roads where that’s an issue, but that’s a different story in bigger places like Oahu, Rae said.
Rae said most pedestrians get hit between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. when visibility is low.
“Number one is to wear something bright and reflective when you’re walking at night in the early evening and early morning when it’s still light out but you need to be seen. If you don’t have a reflective vest, wear something white or wear some reflective bands when you’re walking across the street,” he said.
Rae advised not to have a false sense of safety at a crosswalk.
“Look lane by lane by lane, when you’re crossing the street,” he said.
Laura Estrada teaches an introduction to computers class at the school and also heads up Student Government and student activities and assisted in organizing the day’s events.
“We’ve got the band here, we’ve got team unify here, we got about 30 staff members here and they just came together to help for the cause,” she said.
Promoting traffic safety is important because they’ve been reading a lot about pedestrian accidents, she said.
“Especially since they’ve built this new Safeway shopping center here they have that crosswalk by the school and we’ve seen many close calls and we just want to make them aware that this is 15 miles an hour in the school zone and just kind of prevent anything bad from happening,” Estrada said.
There’s also been a lot of close calls near the roundabout, she said.
“Just because they’re driving too quickly or driving on their phones, we just want to make them aware that some of these accidents can be prevented,” Estrada said.
The students were really excited to participate in the sign-waving event, she said.
On Oahu, there have been 24 deaths. On Maui, there have been four deaths. On the Big Island, there have been two deaths.
The average age of the individuals who have perished is 52 years-old with the youngest being 20 and the oldest being 86. Of those who have died in Hawaii this year, 24 have been men and 10 have been female.
Rae said four of the deaths were in the dusk to dawn hours and the last two were in crosswalks during daylight hours.
Matthew Estrada said if drivers speed through a school zone it could be dangerous for the students.
“Speeding is bad over here,” he said.
President of DTRIC Insurance, Michele Saito, said the number of pedestrian fatalities throughout the state has nearly doubled since last year and they’ve been seeing an increase in distracted driving.
“We want people to really raise awareness around that, driving safe,” she said.
Saito said the number one thing people can do to drive with aloha is to not drive distracted — to put their cell phones down.
They host these events in the schools because it’s all about keeping the keiki safe, Saito said.
“I think it’s a great place to have it but we usually like to do the busy areas, we’ve got this busy highway over here so we thought this would be great,” she said.
This is DTRIC’s second year hosting the Drive Aloha event.
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Bethany Freudenthal, crime, courts and county reporter, 652-7891, bfreudenthal@thegardenisland.com
