Kathleen Johansen noticed the ambulance first. Then she saw her ex-husband lying on the street in front of his Makaha Surfside Condominium.

Carl "Pinky" Johansen, 63, had just been killed by a hit-and-run driver while walking to his home from the market to cook Kathleen, who remained a good friend, a steak dinner.

Then on Monday, exactly a week later, Kathleen was stuck in traffic on Farrington Highway, just a mile from where Pinky had died. As she wondered about the reason for the traffic jam, a frightening idea formed in her head: "I hope it's not another one."

A few moments later, Johansen saw Tapu T. Neddermeyer lying on the ground at Farrington and Army Street. She instantly flashed back to the image of Pinky lying beside Farrington Highway the week before.

Johansen's pain at the loss of a loved one has been repeated with frightening regularity this year. Ten pedestrians have been killed on O'ahu roads in the first 10 weeks of 2007.

The number of people killed has climbed so high so fast that it's easy to forget about the families and friends of the victims, like Wendell Chun.

His wife, Lois Jeanine Reed, was hit Feb. 23 while in a crosswalk at the corner of Pi'ikoi and Beretania streets. She died the next day.

"After a while, they're just numbers," Chun said last week, standing at the same intersection where Reed was hit. "But they're not. They're people with their own families and their own stories."

The family of Fe Bulahan continues to struggle with her death on Jan. 15, when she was hit in a crosswalk on North King Street, 463 feet west of Iwilei Road. The scene of the accident is just a few blocks from her low-income senior citizen apartment on 'A'ala Street Downtown.

Bulahan, 81, and her husband, Manny, 88, had nearly made it across North King Street. The driver of the 2006 white Ford van that hit Bulahan appeared to have the green light, police said.

But Bulahan always needed a little extra time to get through an intersection because Manny is partially blind and Fe "was his eyes," said Gail Lee, the manager of the Kalanihuia apartments where they lived.

"They walked everywhere, and I never saw them apart," Lee said. "They were together constantly, very close. She always gave me a hug and called me ma'am or mom."

On the morning she was hit, the Bulahans were walking to Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace Church at Fort Street Mall so Fe could pray for Manny's eye surgery, scheduled for the next day.

"My father didn't even see the accident," said their oldest of 11 children, Manuel Jr., 55, who flew to Honolulu from Zamboanga, the Philippines, to help with his mother's funeral arrangements. "He was knocked back and knocked unconscious."

His mother often talked about the never-ending traffic in Honolulu, Manuel said. She spoke of the impatience of drivers and the lack of time that she had to help Manny through intersections.

"She was his guide and she said she sometimes had to walk faster to get out of the way," Manuel said.

Last week, Manny Bulahan sat in his apartment in front of a yellowed portrait of himself as a 21-year-old second lieutenant in World War II who fought for the Americans.

With his left eye clouded over and his right one weepy with fluid, Bulahan said he's not sure how he'll get around without his wife.

"It's hard," he said, "very, very hard."

CAR HOPS CURB

Also grieving is the family of Alice Kondo, 78, who was walking to her bank on the morning of Jan. 18 when she was killed by a white 1993 Lexus. It happened just outside her Pearl Regency condominium in 'Aiea near Pearlridge Center.

The 44-year-old driver swerved to avoid another car, police said, hopped onto the curb on Koauku Loop, then struck a traffic sign and newspaper dispenser. Kondo was hit in the head by the traffic sign.

She died at 8:49 a.m. at Pali Momi Medical Center, near the scene of the crash.

The area is surrounded by a half-dozen condos, said Rick Edds, the resident manager of Pearl Regency, which means plenty of pedestrians mingling with lots of traffic.

"People are in a rush," Edds said. "It just seems like people don't care about cutting in front of people. There's no aloha spirit there."

Kondo grew up poor on River Street but received a master's degree in education from Pacific Union College in California. She returned home and taught fourth grade at Hawaiian Mission Elementary School on Makiki Street, retiring after 40 years, said her sister, Sayoko Yamashita.

Edds said he would see Kondo walking in the area around her condo complex.

"She was quiet but very sweet," he said.

Since the accident, Yamashita, 77, has left her senior-citizen apartment on Queen Street at 5:45 a.m. every day to walk to the bus stop on Beretania Street in front of the State Capitol to get to her sister's place in 'Aiea to clean it up to sell.

It's an eerie feeling to walk the same Koauku Loop where Kondo was killed, Yamashita said. But Yamashita feels she owes it to her sister.

"I try to be real careful instead of just stepping down and going," she said. "A lot of people don't stop. Even if I'm in the crosswalk, they go right in front of me."

As careful as she is, Yamashita still can't comprehend that her sister wasn't even crossing traffic when she was killed.

"She wasn't doing anything. She was just walking on the sidewalk. I try to be real careful."

CELEBRATING BIRTHDAY

Neddermeyer, 80, had just left her son's birthday barbecue in Makaha to buy a pack of cigarettes at the Island Mini Mart when she was hit by a neighbor on Feb. 5.

As in Johansen's death, police said, one car stopped to let Neddermeyer cross but a second one didn't and hit her.

"The person who banged my grandmother is my friend, my neighbor," said Neddermeyer's grandson, Klint Sionesini, 29. "I've known her since I've grown up on the same street."

Neddermeyer never complained about the traffic she faced every day while walking around Makaha or while taking TheBus to places like Ala Moana Center, Sionesini said.

"She's not like that," Sionesini said. "She hardly say anything mean. ... She was 80 years old but she walked everywhere. We would never think, right on my dad's birthday, she'd get banged."

Neddermeyer always walked on the farthest edge away from traffic, said Leilani Kaleikula, the fiancee of Neddermeyer's son, James.

"We'd see her all the time and she's walking safely," Kaleikula said.

3 BLOCKS FROM HOME

Lois "Jeanine" Reed, 66, walked everywhere, too.

She walked from her home in Makiki to take care of children and to feed homeless people at churches and homeless shelters. She walked to care for elderly church members.

Reed was also a deacon at First Presbyterian Church of the Koolau and had taught pre-school at two other churches.

In the 1970s, Reed volunteered to help Vietnamese refugees immigrating through Honolulu.

Chun, her husband, knew that Reed made regular payments to support an underprivileged child in Central America. Only after her death did Chun learn that she had secretly been paying to support another child in the Far East.

"It was part of her nature," Chun said. "She was just a friendly person who liked to help people."

Reed walked from Makiki to Kahala Mall. She walked to Chinatown. And on the morning of Feb. 22, Reed was walking mauka on Pi'ikoi Street after a chiropractor appointment.

Reed was just three blocks from home when she entered the crosswalk and was suddenly hit by a light blue, 2003 Kia Sorento making a left turn onto Beretania Street, right in front of Ka'ahumanu School.

Reed had no identification when she was taken to The Queen's Medical Center in critical condition, so Chun had to argue and convince hospital officials that he was her husband and he had to see her.

"Drivers don't understand what happens," Chun said. "Hospitals, funeral arrangements, church services, paperwork. I don't want to see any more families have to go through this."

Last week, he and his step-daughter, Rachelle Reed, returned to Pi'ikoi and Beretania streets, where Rachelle adjusted the hand-lettered memorial she created out of flowers from the funeral.

Reed, 40, is an acting assistant professor at the University of Hawai'i and was supposed to defend her doctoral dissertation last Monday — one more step toward her possible graduation, which falls on Mother's Day this year.

But all of her school plans have been put on hold.

"It's hard to get out of bed sometimes because of the grief," Reed said.

As she stood at the intersection where her mother was killed, Reed saw a car make a left turn onto Beretania and nearly hit a pedestrian in the same crosswalk where her mother was struck.

Since the accident, Reed has been particularly aware of inattentive drivers putting on make-up in their cars, talking on cell phones and even eating — anything, it seems, instead of looking out for pedestrians.

"I want to stop and tell them, 'Be more aware,' " Reed said. "Why does everyone think they're so important? I want to educate them and I want to slap them upside their head. They don't understand what we're going through."

The debate continues in Honolulu over ideas to cut down on the number of accidents, such as lengthening the time that people have to cross streets or increasing the penalties for both drivers and pedestrians who violate crosswalk laws.

Chun has a simpler idea.

Whenever drivers come upon a pedestrian crossing their path, Chun said, they should imagine that person is their mother, daughter, grandfather or brother.

"I bet people wouldn't drive the same if it were their own grandmother in front of them," Chun said. "It's all so senseless. Just so senseless. ... If they only knew what we're going through."

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.