Traffic safety a year-end concern

As 2001 came to a close, Kauai County Police were out in force looking for drunk drivers.

While police patrolled, a 28-year-old woman seriously hurt early last Saturday morning was still hospitalized in Oahu with serious injuries, while the 26-year-old whose truck police said crossed the centerline and struck her car was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence.

During 2001, four Kauaians died in traffic accidents. One of those accidents was alcohol-related, according to police officials.

There were five fatal accidents on Kauai in 2000. Three of the fatalities were teenagers, and excessive speed was involved in all the mishaps, according to police.

Kauai recorded eight traffic fatalities in 1999, three fatals in 1998 and seven in 1996.

The worst year in the past decade for traffic deaths on the island was 1997, when there were 11 fatalities.

Traffic safety officers advise defensive driving and always being seatbelted as two primary ways of avoiding serious injury while behind the wheel.

But nothing is surefire. The woman seriously injured Saturday night was wearing a seatbelt, police said. She had to be extricated from the vehicle by firefighters.

Police on Kauai maintain DUI checkpoints at random locations, and officers have a seatbelt-citation quota. For the first 11 months of 2001, officers made 236 DUI arrests, including nine juveniles.

Kauai leads the state in seatbelt compliance, said Lt. Stanton Koizumi, who heads traffic safety for the county.

Staff writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) and mailto:dwilken@pulitzer.net