Kaneohe rally urges drivers to slow down

Terry McDougall returned Friday to the crosswalk where a Jeep hit her in May and held a sign urging drivers to slow down along a dangerous stretch of Kamehameha Highway in Kaneohe.

“I just hope this will make people open their eyes,” said McDougall, 45, who was struck in the same crosswalk where a hit-and-run driver killed Lany Salva, 38, on Tuesday. “Pay attention.”

She was joined by dozens of other residents calling for drivers to watch out for pedestrians on one part of a half-mile stretch of Kamehameha Highway that has seen four pedestrian fatalities in less than seven years.

Salva died Tuesday night after she was hit in a crosswalk on Kamehameha, next to Pahia Road, where she lived with her husband and three children, ages 18, 16 and 2. She had been heading to her job at Aloha gas station on the other side of the street. Police did not make any arrests by Friday afternoon.

Her husband, Norman Salva, 40, joined the sign wavers and said he appreciated the effort to reduce the possibility of someone else dying in the roadway.

“It means a lot to me and my family,” said Salva’s 16-year-old son, Sam.

Jason Boyd, who went to Salva’s side after she was hit, organized Friday’s rally because he’s seen too many close calls in the same crosswalk. He often escorts elderly customers from his workplace, Kaneohe Pawn, which faces the unsignaled crosswalk, across the five-lane stretch of the highway.

He said there are a lot of pedestrians in the area, including many kids crossing to school or to the mall, and he wants a flashing light to help drivers see pedestrians, especially at night.

“I’ve seen I don’t know how many times people almost get hit in this crosswalk,” he said. “It’s sad that it has to take someone to die for everybody to realize that we should be putting something in here.”

Salva was the fourth pedestrian to be killed in a half-mile stretch of Kamehameha from Haiku Road to Keaahala Road since 2005. William Kobashigawa, an 89-year-old World War II veteran, was hit by a truck in December 2005 while in a crosswalk near Windward Mall. In July 2008, Albert Beers died after being hit by a van in the same crosswalk Salva was in. Douglas Shrader, a college professor from New York, died in July 2010 after a car hit him on the sidewalk in front of the Shell gas station, about 100 feet south of Pahia Road.

In McDougall’s case a car had stopped to let her pass, but a Jeep in the outer lane kept going, forcing her to jump out of the way.

“If I didn’t dive, I would have been dead,” she said. The Jeep hit her in the lower left back, sending her to the hospital. She was released the same day, but she sustained nerve damage that continues to afflict her.

“Sometimes the pain is just too much,” she said.

Department of Transportation Services Director Wayne Yoshi­oka said the city completed a review of the crosswalk near Pahia Road last year and determined it was as safe as it could be without a signal. But the city is working on a pilot project to assess the suitability of pedestrian-activated lights, in-ground lights, or signs in the middle of the road at major unsignaled crosswalks, including the one near Pahia.

The soonest that changes could be made would be in late 2013. He said testing is needed first because if not installed properly, the safety measure could create a false sense of security for pedestrians.

“The bottom line is an un-signalized crosswalk does require caution by the pedestrian and of course by the driver,” he said.