Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Transportation, to which was referred S.B. No. 2015 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this bill is to preserve the beauty of Hawaii and improve the safety of communities by clarifying that vehicles left on a public highway that are without proper registration and a current safety inspection may be considered abandoned thus providing a mechanism for immediate removal of the vehicle.

The Department of Customer Services of the City and County of Honolulu and Department of Environmental Management of the County of Hawaii testified in support of this bill.

Concerns have been raised regarding the growing number of abandoned vehicles left on public highways throughout communities in the State. This not only destroys the beauty of our island state but can become a safety issue as more and more of these abandoned vehicles are being used for illegal activities.

Your Committee agrees that current statutes allowing for vehicles to be declared as abandoned only if a vehicle is left unattended for more than 24 hours allows individuals to use public highways as storage facilities and that something needs to be done to combat the proliferation of abandoned vehicles on our highways.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Transportation that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2015 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary.