Question: Recently, I was following a sedan in which a woman held an infant on her lap in the backseat. There was no car seat in the vehicle. The infant looked to be about 4 months old. I wrote down the license plate, but when I tried to call the car seat hot line later, the number was disconnected. Is there no hot line anymore? What should we do when we see someone endangering their baby this way?
Answer: The police department advises calling 911 immediately, giving details, such as license number, description of vehicle, driver and location.
For now, that’s your only option, because there hasn’t been a Keiki Car Seat Hotline on Oahu to take calls about alleged violations for “quite a while,” said Marie Weite,
a member of the board of directors for the nonprofit Keiki Injury Prevention Coalition, or KIPC.
Although there are references to the hot line on the Internet, it was discontinued about 10 years ago when state funding ended, Weite said.
She explained that the hot line, in its early years, served as an educational tool.
“A call to it would generate a letter advising the (driver) of the current law,” when the laws requiring car seats, then booster seats, were fairly new, she said. “We just were trying to get the information out there.”
Although KIPC does not currently have an executive director, it is still operating, Weite said. Its mission is to prevent and reduce injuries to children in Hawaii.
KIPC doesn’t receive any direct funding from the state, but administers the state Department of Transportation’s grant that covers child passenger safety.
“We train car seat technicians through the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration program. We do education on child passenger safety. We also do education on poison control and playground safety,” Weite said. “We have a coalition of stakeholders that go from safe sleep to playground safety,” as well as water safety and teen driving safety.
The best way to get information about child safety is to call KIPC at 347-5410, she said.
“We don’t give direct service per se — we’re very much informational and the preventative part is a big part for us,” Weite said.
You can also check KIPC’s website, www.kipchawaii.org, which is in the process of being revamped.
Question: The other day while driving on the airport viaduct, I saw that the parking lot where the “Park and Fly” used to be was half full with cars. Has someone started the business to drive people to the airport from that lot or have they opened it for people who work in that area to park their cars? I am looking for an alternative to parking in the airport parking garage because it is so expensive.
Answer: Your cheaper alternative to parking in the main Honolulu Airport garages is the airport’s Economy Lot J, which charges $12 per 24 hours (or fraction thereof), with a two-day minimum.
That lot is in the area just Diamond Head of the lei stands. It’s automated, so when you leave, you insert your parking ticket into the pay station in the middle of the lot and pay either by cash or credit card.
Daily parking rates at the airport increased from $13 to $15 in May. There no longer is a private off-site lot nearby where you can park and take a shuttle to the airport.
For information about airport parking, go to http://hawaii.gov/hnl/airport-parking Opens in a new tab.
Auwe
To the young woman driving the black Dodge east on the H-1 freeway from Fort Weaver Road the morning of Oct. 27: If you must smoke, don’t compound your mistake by littering as well. I saw you flip your cigarette butt out the window and wished I could’ve asked why you did that. I walk on my street each morning and am disheartened that people think it’s OK to use our beautiful state as an ashtray. — Megan/Ewa Beach
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