STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1080

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2025

RE: H.B. No. 706

H.D. 1

Honorable Nadine K. Nakamura

Speaker, House of Representatives

Thirty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2025

State of Hawaii

Madame:

Your Committee on Judiciary & Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred H.B. No. 706, H.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HIGHWAY SAFETY,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to require all skateboard users under the age of sixteen to wear a helmet while operating a skateboard on public property.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Transportation; AAA Hawaiʻi; Kapiʻolani Medical Center for Women & Children; and four individuals.

Your Committee finds that according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, more than two hundred thirty thousand people with skateboarding-related injuries received emergency treatment at a hospital in 2022, with more than one-third involving children under the age of fifteen. Your Committee further finds that non-helmeted skateboards have a sixty percent greater risk of sustaining an injury than helmeted skateboarders. This measure will align Hawaii with other states that have passed mandatory helmet laws for minors who are skateboarding on streets and other public properties such as skateparks.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary & Hawaiian Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 706, H.D. 1, and recommends that it pass Third Reading.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Judiciary & Hawaiian Affairs,

____________________________

DAVID A. TARNAS, Chair