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Speed was a factor in a crash that killed a Maui motorcyclist this morning in Pukalani, Maui police said.
Police identified the motorcyclist as Javin Anthony Leal, 26, of Makawao.
Leal was riding a 2004 Yamaha YZF-R1 motorcycle when he collided with a Lexus SUV that was making a left turn from Old Haleakala Highway onto Haleakala Highway, police said.
Leal was thrown from the motorcycle and died at the scene.
The driver of the SUV, a 69-year-old Pukalani man, was wearing his seat belt and sustained minor injuries for which he was treated at the scene and released.
Police said Leal was wearing a helmet. The crash happened about 5:30 a.m.
This was Maui’s fifth traffic fatality this year compared to two at this time last year.
I passed the scene about 10 minutes after the accident. Speed was absolutely a factor as his body was more than 100 feet past the SUV and he was going uphill so you know he was doing serious speed. Very unfortunate but these guys need to slow down. They are flying at over 100 mph constantly on this stretch of road and when its dark like it was when this happened, you have no idea how fast someone is going and you cant judge how much time you have to pull out!PLEASE do the speed limit so we don’t lose any more lives so foolishly!
Agreed. This reminds me of the horrific accident that happened a few years back on Nimitz Highway under the Airport viaduct. A motorcyclist was Ewa-bound at an extremely high rate of speed at 2:00 am in the wee hours of the morning. A man driving a Nissan Altima was town-bound and turned left in front of the motorcyclist. There were no skid marks and the motorcyclist hit the passenger side of the car at full throttle. Here’s the kicker: the DRIVER of the car was killed also. I saw a picture of the motorcycle embedded in the car, and the only thing recognizable was the back tire of the motorcycle sticking out. The motorcyclist was so mangled that firefighters initially could not even tell what the sex of the man was. Thank God I didn’t have to clean up that mess.