Driver dies hitting tow truck protruding onto Pali Highway

A former building superintendent for the city was killed and his wife badly injured Thursday morning in a crash on Pali Highway.

Herbert Muraoka, 83, died when the Toyota Matrix he was driving hit a flatbed tow truck after passing through the Pali tunnels at 8:53 a.m.

Police said both vehicles were traveling toward Hono­­lulu and that the truck had gone into the median to make a U-turn to get back into the Kailua-bound lanes. The rear of the truck, estimated at about 30 feet long, was protruding into the left Hono­lulu-bound lane when the Matrix crashed into it, police said.

"The Toyota (driver) didn’t see the tow truck, which was extending into the roadway," said Lt. Robert Towne of the Hono­lulu Police Department Traffic Division.

The impact was so great the top of the Matrix was partially sheared off. The Matrix ended up on an embankment on the Kailua-bound shoulder.

Muraoka died at the scene. An 83-year-old female passenger, believed to be Mura­oka’s wife, Marjorie, was brought to the Queen’s Medical Center in serious condition, police said. The driver of the truck, a 52-year-old Kailua man, was not injured.

The truck, which is owned by Windward Side Recovery and Trucking, was trying to make the turn on a paved "break" in the otherwise grassy median, police said.

There is a "Keep Off the Median … No Turns" sign near the crash site. Police officials said they are asking the state Department of Transportation to put up more signs warning people not to make U-turns in the area.

Muraoka, appointed by the late Mayor Frank Fasi, headed the city Building Department for about 10 years, until he retired in 1994.

Randall Fujiki, who took over as superintendent when Mura­oka retired, called his predecessor a legend in the department who earned the respect of his employees, having worked his way up the ranks. Mura­oka helped formulate local and national building codes, Fujiki said.

Muraoka’s brother, Art, said his older sibling was "very intelligent, very fair, and treated people like they were all part of the family."

A Korean War veteran, Herbert Mura­oka graduated from the University of Hawaii with a civil engineering degree, and he began working for the city in 1960, his brother said.

Herbert Mura­oka and his wife Marjorie, of Nuuanu, have a son, two daughters and seven grandchildren.

After he retired, Herbert and Marjorie Muraoka golfed nine holes almost every morning at the Pali Golf Course, Art Mura­oka said. Golf clubs were seen in the back of the mangled Matrix after the crash.

Herbert Muraoka’s death was the fourth Oahu traffic fatality in 2013, compared with two at this time in 2012.