One Dead And One Seriously Injured When Motorcycle Hits Guardrail On Oahu
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A 27 year old woman driving a motorcycle on Kaukonahua Road on the North Shore was killed when her motorcycle went out of control and hit a guardrail. Her passenger, a 23 year old woman was taken to the hospital in critical condition and is improving. Police say speed was a factor in the crash at an area where the posted speed limit is 25 mph. Both riders were ejected from the motorcycle at the time of the crash and both were wearing helmets.
The crash occured at the "s-curve" and the motorcycle was headed towards Waialua.
According to a TV news report by KITV:
The thing about speed limits is not something you can ignore. It's what engineers have figured out based on the curvature of the road, the incline the surface. It's what your vehicle can handle if you go too far past that you breaking the laws of physics," said Lt. Darren Izumo, with the Honolulu Police Department.
According to a TV news report by Olena Rubin at KHON TV News, the death of this young motorcyclist is the nineteenth death on Oahu roads so far this year.
Again it looks like speed is a contributing cause. As we all have noticed on Oahu, the police are being pro-active in stopping and ticketing speeders lately. Good for them. If you speed, slow down. People are dying out there. Don't be the cause and don't be the victim.
“The operator of the motorcycle was killed at the scene and the passenger was taken to Queens in critical condition and then later upgraded to good condition,” Honolulu Police Department Lt. Darren Izumo said.
“At this time we believe speed was a factor and we will determine later if drugs or alcohol was involved,” Lt. Izumo said.
Kaukonahua Road is notorious for injury and death as one of the deadliest roads on Oahu because of crashes like this. “Its only dangerous is you are exceeding the posted speed limit, which I believe is 25 miles per hour, that's because it does curve,” Lt. Izumo said.
The KHON report recalled prior incidents:
Just over a year ago a 27 year-old Scholfield soldier died after he lost control of his motorcycle and crashed head on with an SUV.
Four months earlier another motorcyclist died at that same spot after he spun out of control, he was speeding at the time.
The police explain in the KHON report that the speed limit isn't arbitrary. It is calculated by engineers who look at road surface, radius of turns, slopes and banks. Speed limits cannot be safely ignored:
“The thing about speed limits is its not, its not something you can ignore, its what the engineers have figured out based on the curvature of the road, the incline, the surface is what your vehicle can handle,” Lt. Izumo said.
“If you go too far past that you're breaking the laws of physics basically and unlike regular speeding where you break the law and you get cited if you break the laws of physics things like this happen,” Lt. Izumo
I have written about motorcycle crashes too much this year.
Motorcycle Deaths Skyrocket On Oahu
Elderly Man Killed On Kaukonahua Road
The grieving families of these sad incidents is incalculable. These young women were having a wonderful Sunday ride with friends. Now their lives are shattered and their families grieve. The police and the highway people have grappled with this stretch of road for years, They have installed rmble strips, They post signs andinstall guardrails but still the tragedies continue. As the police officer said about this incident, at the end of the day the fault lies with the driver in most cases. As a sad post mortem, most motorcycle owners carry minimum policies of insurance on their bikes and serious injuries and deaths that occur often put the victims on public assistence to pay for medical bills and loss of income is lost forever.