On a day when four women were killed in a traffic accident on Kunia Road, roadside wooden crosses marking a fatal accident last year that claimed a father and two sons served as further testament to the road's deadly reputation.

In April 2005, Nestor Manzano Sr., 43, and his sons, Edison Manzano, 16, and Nestor Manzano Jr., 19, were killed when their 1991 Chevrolet Cavalier slammed into a flatbed truck belonging to nearby Kunia farmers.

Just a month before that, two people were killed in a collision two miles north of the Royal Kunia subdivision.

And last month, Army Staff Sgt. Noel Rao, a father of two young children, was killed when his 1998 Ford Escort left Kunia Road, sheared off a utility pole, careened down an embankment and landed on its roof.

It's a fatality record that once again has Village Park and Royal Kunia residents expressing concern about the two-lane road stretching from Waipahu to Wahiawa.

"If you drive up there, you see the crosses on the side of the road and the balloons hanging there — people died. We've been seeing a lot more of them recently," said Thomas Maus, a Village Park resident and member of the Waipahu Neighborhood Board.

State Rep. Jon Riki Karamatsu, D-41st (Waipahu, Village Park, Waikele), said residents have complained about speeding and illegal passing on the two-lane road for years.

"People seem to like to speed on this road," Karamatsu said. "Cars are still sometimes speeding like crazy. They treat it like it's a highway."

Karamatsu said traffic lights were added to slow down traffic and sidewalks were added near Village Park and Kunia to give pedestrians a safe place to pass over the past few years.

But Karamatsu said the road isn't the problem, it is drivers who don't follow traffic laws. Police said in yesterday's fatal crash, the driver was attempting to pass in a no-passing zone.

"The scary thing about this accident is the driver went against the law by passing to the other lane," Karamatsu said.

Capt. Frank Fujii of the Honolulu Police Department agrees.

"Where the collision occurred, it was a no-pass zone." Fujii said. "It depends on drivers. If drivers heed regulations, roadways would be safer."

Maus said residents have been asking for a long time about safety improvements to Kunia Road — including possibly widening it. But little has been done, he said.

"It's very rare that anyone ever does the speed limit," Maus said. "And accidents happen when people illegally pass."

Several factors about Kunia Road make it dangerous. Previously, traffic investigators cited: