Question: Is it legal to use a photo of my driver’s license in my cellphone if stopped by a police officer on the road?
Answer: No. “According to HRS 286-116(a), every licensee shall have a valid driver’s license in the licensee’s immediate possession at all times. A photo is not considered a valid license,” said Michelle Yu, spokeswoman for the Honolulu Police Department.
Digital proof of insurance is allowed during a traffic stop, according to the same statute, which states that a vehicle driver or owner may display for police an “electronic motor vehicle insurance identification card on a mobile electronic device.”
You can read the full statute at 808ne.ws/licenselaw, to see that it mentions only electronic versions of insurance cards, not driver’s licenses.
Q: I want to give a big auwe to the people in the white van who took food donations for the mail carrier’s food drive in Mililani on May 13. May you all get “bachi” for taking those items for the people that are unable to feed their families. I can’t believe that they can take those items with a clear conscience knowing that it was for the food bank. Plus, it makes the people who put food items out appear to have not put anything out for the mail carrier food drive!
A: We turned your complaint into a question so that we could follow up with the U.S. Postal Service, hoping to find out that the van had accompanied the postal truck along the route and that your donations were rightfully collected. Alas, that was not the case, so consider your auwe delivered.
Duke Gonzalez, spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service, confirmed with a coordinator of the food drive that only Postal Service vehicles were used to pick up food donations in the Mililani area that day, for the 25th annual National Association of Letter Carriers’ “Stamp Out Hunger” Food Drive.
In many other Hawaii neighborhoods, event volunteers in vans and trucks did accompany postal vehicles on their rounds, allowing letter carriers to offload their vehicles to keep them from being overloaded with canned goods. But those legitimate transfer vehicles were labeled with signs reading “NALC — USPS Food Drive,” Gonzalez said.
The annual drive collects hundreds of thousands of pounds of food for Hawaii’s food banks.
Q: Attorney General Douglas Chin has been persistent in challenging President Trump’s partial travel ban on citizens from six predominantly Muslim countries. What percentage of Hawaii’s population is Muslim?
A: Less than 1 percent, according to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center. An earlier study, the 2010 U.S. Religion Census by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, found that Hawaii’s Muslim population was 49th in the nation, larger only than Montana’s (50) and Vermont’s (51); the list included the District of Columbia. The ASARB will update the religious census in 2020.
That Muslims are such a minority in Hawaii makes it all the more important that people stand up for them, Chin has said. He’s noted historic parallels with unjust treatment of Japanese-Americans during World War II — a minority population interned on the basis of race — and spoken of his experiences as a son of Chinese immigrants subjected to exclusionary policies. You can read more in an Associated Press profile published in March: 808ne.ws/apdchin.
Mahalo
We arrived at Magic Island for our usual morning swim early on Wednesday. Three City and County of Honolulu garbage trucks were just leaving, and buses of kids were arriving for summer fun swims. Thousands were able to view the fireworks from the park, yet it was beautifully clean and ready for the next wave of appreciative users. — Malia
Write to Kokua Line at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Honolulu 96813; call 529-4773; fax 529-4750; or email kokualine@staradvertiser.com.
