LUNALILO HOME ROAD

MEDIAN HAS SLOWED TRAFFIC, BROUGHT SHADE

I agree with Joyce H. Cassen (Letter, Dec. 31).

We are spending $100,000 of our tax money to remove a beautiful part of our neighborhood because a few people cannot access their driveways as easily as previously.

What happened to tax money being spent for the greater good of the neighborhood and not for the inconvenience of a few? The median has slowed traffic considerably, as well as made it a friendlier pedestrian and bicycling way with shade trees and space for all of us.

I don't understand why parking has not been banned on Lunalilo Home Road alongside these median strips. It would measurably improve visibility and driving space. We have enough urban congestion problems in Hawai'i Kai without making us a freeway thoroughfare for the drivers.

HIGHER EDUCATION

UH'S ONLINE COURSES NEED A SYSTEM UPGRADE

Les Sponsel, the University of Hawai'i-Manoa professor, had the best offer for everyone seeking higher education on O'ahu (Letter, Dec. 22).

I live on a Neighbor Island, and take UH courses online. However, I find the UH system very antiquated. Its online system needs upgrading. Every time I went online for my classes, I had to disable my virus protection. That is scary. In fact, once when I was online for my UH class, a virus crept through and wiped out my contact list.

I will still go online for a higher education, and I hope UH leads the way throughout the state as an online institute to develop higher education for students on all the Neighbor Islands.

BIG ISLAND

NEEDS OF WORKERS NOT BEING ACCOMMODATED

Hawai'i county has 87 percent of the island's jobs in Kohala and Kona. With zilch affordable housing on the "Gold Coast," hotel and construction workers from Hilo travel up to 200 miles round trip every working day or they work double shifts, eating and sleeping in their cars for days on end — a growing option as rent and fuel rates continue to soar.

Worldwide, parks, resorts and condos provide two-bed dormitory rooms with amenities such as social common areas, cafeterias, tennis courts and swimming pools to accommodate the needs of employees, for which each employee pays reasonable compensation back to the developer.

While our citizens sleep in hotel parking lots, our travel industry offers housing and benefits to "temporary" immigrant workers — what's up with that?

TRAFFIC CODE

LET'S DRIVE WITH ALOHA, YIELD TO PEDESTRIANS

There seems to be considerable confusion on the part of Hawai'i's motorists as to when they are required to stop for a pedestrian in a crosswalk.

HRS 291C-72(a) requires the driver to stop and yield the right of way to pedestrians within a crosswalk. This law makes no distinction between a marked and unmarked crosswalk. The driver is required to stop regardless of whether the crosswalk is marked or unmarked.

Under the law, there is a crosswalk at virtually every intersection, marked or not (see HRS 291C-1).

The vast majority of crosswalks in Hawai'i are unmarked. To avoid violating the law and a substantial fine, not to mention risking injury to an innocent pedestrian, the best policy is to stop for pedestrians whenever and wherever you encounter them.

Please, drive with aloha toward all road users, and especially those on foot.

ROD HARAGA

IT'S TOO BAD POLITICS TRUMPED PERFORMANCE

State Department of Transportation Director Rod Haraga deserves high praise and a big mahalo from the people of Hawai'i for heading the DOT in an outstanding and exceptional manner.

His visibility through the news media and neighborhood boards gave us up-to-date reports on traffic, natural disasters and future developments. His concerns for safety on the highways, harbors and airports were his highest priorities.

Rod and his spokesperson, Scott Ishikawa, did an excellent job in keeping the public informed of critical traffic situations and construction work.

Under his leadership, Rod has brought the DOT to the highest level of public trust and confidence. He will be missed. It's unfortunate politics overpowered performance. Four more years would have been nice.

IRAQ WAR

SACRIFICE OF U.S. LIVES IS UNLAWFUL, IMMORAL

Rule 916 of the Manual of Courts-Martial says that a serviceman must follow orders "unless the accused knew the orders to be unlawful or a person of ordinary sense and understanding would have known the orders to be unlawful." The post-WWII war crimes trials at Nuremberg denounced the "only following orders" defense.

Any person of ordinary sense and understanding would have known the orders to deploy to Iraq to kill men, women and children based on lies perpetrated by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would be unlawful.

Sacrificing our courageous military men and women to further the goals of this triumvirate is unlawful and immoral. Whether these goals are to bring about regime change, rid the world of a murdering dictator or establish democracy in the Middle East, they are not worth one drop of our sons' and daughters' blood.

I applaud Lt. Ehren Watada and his principled stand to disobey what is clearly an unlawful order. His is not the act of a coward.