STAND

STAND. COM. REP. NO. 918-04

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2004

RE: S.B. No. 2024

S.D. 1

H.D. 1

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. 2024, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE TRAFFIC CODE,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this bill is to promote traffic and pedestrian safety. Among other things, this bill:

(1) Enacts new penalties for those who violate part VII of the Statewide Traffic Code (Pedestrians' Rights and Duties), chapter 291C, Hawaii Revised Statutes;

(2) Clarifies drivers' and pedestrians' duties when pedestrians are crossing at crosswalks that do not have traffic-control signals or the traffic-control signals at a crosswalk are inoperable;

(3) Requires that whenever a vehicle is stopped at a marked crosswalk or at an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, to allow a pedestrian to cross the roadway, the driver of another vehicle approaching from the adjacent lanes to the rear of the stopped vehicle must come to a complete stop and may proceed no further than the front bumper of the stopped vehicle; and

(4) Prohibits pedestrians from crossing, among other places:

(A) Outside of a marked crosswalk;

(B) Outside of an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection;

(D) A roadway at a point where a pedestrian tunnel or overhead pedestrian crossing has been provided.

The Department of Transportation, Honolulu Police Department, and Hawaii Bicycling League testified in support of this bill.

Your Committee finds that pedestrians crossing the street are experiencing too many injuries and fatalities and that these numbers continue to increase every year. These incidents are often caused by inattentive drivers, but pedestrians also share some of the blame. Although many of these incidences occur outside of a marked crosswalk, far too many occur while a pedestrian is crossing the street in a marked crosswalk.

Although this is a serious issue and deserves the utmost attention, your Committee finds that the sentences of imprisonment provided for in this measure for violations of the pedestrian rights and duties section of the Statewide Traffic Code may be extreme. Accordingly, your Committee has amended this bill by, among other things:

(1) Removing references to imprisonment as a penalty for violating part VII of the Statewide Traffic Code (Pedestrians' Rights and Duties);

(2) Clarifying that vehicles stopping in adjacent lanes to a vehicle that has stopped to allow a pedestrian to cross the roadway shall not proceed further than the front of the vehicle rather than the vehicle's front bumper;

(3) Prohibiting vehicles directly in the same lane to the rear of the stopped vehicle yielding to a crossing pedestrian from overtaking the vehicle stopped for the pedestrian; and

(4) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for clarity, consistency, and style.

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. 2024, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2024, S.D. 1, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Transportation,

		____________________________ JOSEPH M. SOUKI, Chair