Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2005

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Transportation and Government Operations and Intergovernmental Affairs, to which was referred S.R. No. 58 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to request the Department of Transportation (DOT) to study and evaluate current Hawaii County traffic plans to ensure the objectives of the Hawaii State Planning Act for transportation planning are met and to prepare a traffic solution plan for Hawaii County.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Transportation, ILWU Local 142, Five Mountains Hawaii, and The North Hawaii Outcomes Project (NHOP).

The NHOP has been working with the Department of Health, DOT, Hawaii County Police Department, Hawaii County Mass Transit Agency, Hawaii County Department of Public Works, Kona and South Kohala traffic safety committees, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, emergency room physicians, and the Big Island business community to study traffic accident prevention and safety measures. The NHOP has found a significantly higher rate of fatal vehicle crashes from 1996 to 2002 in Hawaii County compared to rates in all the other counties: three times higher than Honolulu and two times higher than Maui and Kauai. Testimony indicated that there are numerous hazardous road conditions that are major causative factors in serious and often fatal vehicular crashes. The vast majority of the accidents involve residents who are familiar with the roads but who nonetheless are not able to safely negotiate the hazards. Your Committees find the testimony to be disturbing and find the hazardous road conditions to warrant immediate attention from the State and Hawaii County.

Your Committees further find that some notorious traffic accident sites should be made safe as soon as possible rather than await the formation of a comprehensive county traffic plan. Your Committees request the DOT and the Hawaii County Department of Public Works to take immediate remedial action to make safe those locations identified in testimony by the NHOP. Your Committees further request the Mayor of Hawaii County to expend funds for a share of the planning costs of at least $500,000 identified by the DOT in testimony, and the costs of the immediate remedial work.

Testimony on this measure indicated that the NHOP has not been able to obtain traffic accident records to accurately assess highway hazards. Your Committees note that S.B. No. 689, S.D. 1 (2005) would have prohibited the discovery and admission into evidence of highway hazard evaluation data, as provided by federal law pursuant to Title 23, U.S.C. section 409. Your Committees find that the provisions of S.B. No. 689 and the federal law are identical. However, it appears that the DOT and the county police are still not sharing the gathered data for bona fide traffic studies conducted by private organizations for research purposes. According to testimony of the Attorney General on S.B. No. 689, the reluctance stems from an overabundance of caution by state and local traffic officials resulting from sometimes unpredictable local court rulings in favor of plaintiffs in traffic accident litigation despite the federal law. Therefore, state and county authorities do not want to invite litigation against them. In the absence of a state statute, your Committees believe that a predicament exists in Hawaii in that federal statutory law confers protection on sharing this information but the case law interpreting and applying that law in Hawaii effectively abrogates the federal law.

Your Committees have amended this measure by:

It is the intent of your Committees to include funding to complete the study in a 2006 measure, based upon the cost estimates in the interim report. Your Committees request the DOT to also seek federal funding, particularly if the subject highway sites are used by military vehicles.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Transportation and Government Operations and Intergovernmental Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees concur with the intent and purpose of S.R. No. 58, as amended herein, and recommend its adoption in the form attached hereto as S.R. No. 58, S.D. 1.