SAFETY

HELMETS SAVE LIVES, SHOULD BE REQUIRED

"The driver was not wearing a helmet." These few words have appeared several times in recent weeks and are always part of a story involving a moped or motorcycle rider who was fatally or seriously injured.

Over the years, I've spoken repeatedly with people who arrived in the ER after an accident and have been lucky enough to just have a broken leg or arm, a ruptured spleen or liver. I ask them. "Why don't you wear a helmet?" The rationalized and selfish answer usually includes a reference to "freedom" or a declaration as to how "careful" they ride, or how they love the wind blowing through their hair.

I understand these things. But I also understand the reality of serious head injuries. Too often they take a productive individual, and if not fatal, often destine them to a life of dependency at incredible financial and personal costs to society and their families.

The data is clear: Helmets save lives and prevent serious head injuries. I also understand that as a society we make choices. We have enacted seat-belt laws because they save lives and we are fined for noncompliance. We levy a heavy tax on cigarettes, for they are clearly associated with cancers and vascular disease that are costly to treat and take lives. We do these things understanding that they may well infringe upon some individual freedoms, but they are done for a perceived common good. So it should be with helmets.

H-1

MORE TOW TRUCKS NEEDED IN RUSH HOUR

Have you ever parked for 10 minutes where you were not supposed to and come back to find that your car has been towed?

On a recent morning, there was a stalled car on the H-1 Freeway for more than 45 minutes, which backed up cars for miles.

Something is wrong with this picture. Why can't we employ more tow trucks to go with the flow of traffic, or build them places on the side so they will be nearby?

TRAFFIC CONGESTION

'NO INSURANCE NO GAS' WILL GET CARS OFF ROAD

More than a year ago, I suggested on this page that drivers of cars with no auto insurance should not be able to get gas. I went on to say that it would work like getting gas at Costco: no membership at Costco, no gas.

A driver of a car without auto insurance works the same way. No auto insurance, no gas either at the pump or with the cashier at any Hawai'i gas station. This will remove cars from our streets that are not covered by auto insurance, a requirement anyway.

It is estimated that up to 20 percent of Hawai'i drivers do not have auto insurance. Even at half this estimate, "no insurance, no gas" would remove about 60,000 cars from our streets each weekday.

That is more than the 34,000 per day that rail will remove, according to the rail study just released.

This can happen in a very short time when all gas outlets in Hawai'i and insurance companies get together. "No insurance, no gas" seems like reasonable legislation to pass next year. Hawai'i may even set a national standard.

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA

WONDERFUL TO RELATE: HOPE HAS BEEN REBORN

There are some words from the "Negro National Anthem," written in the 1930s by James Weldon Johnson, a great black poet of those times, that shed light on this new day in America:

Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod

Felt in the days when hope, unborn, had died

When hope, unborn, had died: Think of it — black people never lost hope in this country even when it seemed to have died.

Even the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's words reflected a hope that America could be better, and Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech was a faith that it would be.

Would that he could have been here today to witness the transformation that has and will take place from that hope, from that dream. When hope, unborn, had died. This is what black people in this country have come through and persevered.

But now hope has been revived and reborn. Mirabile dictu. Thanks be to God.

SATURDAY SHOWS

METROPOLITAN OPERA PLAYING AT DOLE THEATER

In what is probably the best-kept secret in town, the Metropolitan Opera's Live in HD Series is playing in Honolulu. Eleven operas are scheduled for Saturdays at 1 p.m., with repeats on various Wednesday evenings. The next one is Dr. Atomic on Saturday. The final performance is May 9.

These events are shown worldwide. Rave notices have come from as far away as Paris. Yet, there has been virtually no public notice of this opportunity to see opera at its best. I heard about it from a cousin in North Carolina. After surfing the Web and calling Regal Theatre management at Dole Cannery, I learned the dates, performances and run times.

But when I tell people about it, they say that they checked the Web site and its links and could not find any listing for Honolulu. Regal has not advertised the performances. Not even a line or two in the movie ads the week of the performance.

If few people attend because no one knows, we could well lose the opportunity to attend these magnificent performances in years to come. This is the third year of the program, and the first time for Honolulu.

Tickets can be purchased at the box office now for all shows.