MOTORCYCLE SAFETY

HELMETS DANGEROUS AT NORMAL DRIVING SPEED

There have been a couple of letters recently from the "ride a motorcycle and die" crowd, who perennially pop up before the opening of the Legislature advocating mandatory helmet use.

No matter what compelling arguments are made against the use of helmets as a safety tool, the Earth will always be flat, and no amount of logic will dissuade.

A full-face helmet allays head abrasion on pavement contact at low speed, say under 15 mph. To argue that point would be silly.

The problem arises with the intrinsic weight of the helmet under normal driving speed during sudden change in forward momentum. A four-pound helmet at 50 mph weighs 200 pounds during sudden deceleration.

If the torso is impacted, the head, because of the added weight of the helmet, can keep going, causing neck breakage and basal skull fracture.

For those letter writers who have a genuine desire to support motorcycle safety, their efforts instead would be most welcome in helping to promote a viable motorcycle training course throughout the Islands, applauding the motorcycle awareness programs and education of the motoring public, and supporting the State Motorcycle Task Force and Street Bikers United.

MAHALO

ISLE COUPLE GRATEFUL FOR RETURN OF LOST WALLET

My wife and I would like to thank the person who found my wife's wallet at Safeway on Monday evening and turned it in to management.

We didn't realized it was missing until Tuesday morning during a hike with our two sons at St. Louis Heights.

We searched the trail thinking that it was lost during the hike and it wasn't until the drive back home that my wife mentioned she could have lost it when she went to Safeway the night before.

My wife was in tears when the Safeway manager replied that someone had turned it in.

Only in Hawai'i will you find people who are so caring and honest.

TRANSIT

RAIL SYSTEM'S STOPS SHOULD BE LIMITED

I voted for rail, but we need rail because no other means of transportation will work. I know of nothing that could convince me to leave my car and ride on mass transit in the same traffic, unless it was free.

Rail will not have to contend with the traffic. But to be effective, it must go past the major malls (Pearlridge, Ala Moana and Kahala) and college campuses (Leeward and Manoa). It must also go past Pearl Harbor — don't people realize how many people work there?

There also need to be stops downtown, not in Waikiki. People should transfer to buses after they are in town. The train should not be making stops like a bus all along the route; the stops should be limited.

The in-town people should still be using the bus. Anyone who watches the morning news can see the traffic bottleneck from H-1/H-2 merge to Aloha Stadium. The system should also run late into the evening, and it should also eventually reach Hawai'i Kai.

SALT LAKE ROUTE WOULD HELP TO CUT CONGESTION

I know there are lots of people out there who favor building a rail line to the airport over Salt Lake, but there are a few things that people need to consider.

Rail is being built to ease traffic congestion.

There are no residents at the airport; people going to and from the airport are not contributing to rush-hour traffic.

Salt Lake's population density is very high.

Current bus lines servicing the Salt Lake area can be diverted to other areas.

Tourists who "might" take rail will still have to get off at Ala Moana and get transportation to Waikiki.

Please don't lose sight of the original purpose and then complain that it's not working when the airport route is implemented.

UH-MANOA SHOULD BE ON INITIAL RAIL ROUTE

Now that rail has been approved, there's been a lot of talk about changing the route from Salt Lake to Pearl Harbor and the airport.

While it seems like Salt Lake greatly needs rail — there always seems to be a bottleneck right at Salt Lake regardless of the time of day — I think it's a no-brainer that Pearl Harbor takes priority over Salt Lake based on the huge population that commutes to Pearl Harbor every day.

The airport's all very nice and good, but if it's not connected to Waikiki, I'm not sure how useful it will be to visitors.

All this talk of Salt Lake and the airport misses the most glaring omission in our rail route, however. If there is one stop that should have been on the initial rail line, it's the University of Hawai'i-Manoa.

As we all know, traffic on O'ahu ebbs and flows according to the UH-Manoa calendar. UH-Manoa is currently on the map as part of "planned future extensions," but if the initial rail route is not well used then this spur will never be built and we will never know the full extent to which rail might be have been used by the community.