Unusual strategy
for the homeless
I’ve been thinking it would benefit homeless citizens living in tents to go to Mexico and enter this country mixed in with the illegal migrants.
They will be given free health care, free housing (if lucky, housed in a luxury hotel), a stipend, cellphone and transportation to the city of choice, all paid for by U.S. taxpayers and President Biden’s printing press.
The one thing you must not do is to admit you’re a citizen. Ain’t this a great country?
James Igawa
Keaau
Happy to be called
a Swiftie if it works
If being called a “Swiftie” is what it will take to enable the defeat of the Menace of the MAGA Meatheads and Donald the Demented, consider me labeled.
I’ll even start listening to her music, just to get into the spirit of the movement.
Here’s hoping this and other airheaded conspiracy theories continue to consume all of their oxygen, right up to Nov. 5.
Timothy Cooper
Hilo
Pass legislation to
lower BAC limit
Motor vehicle crashes killed 94 people and caused $580 million in economic harm in Hawaii in 2021. Thirty percent of those fatalities involved drunk driving.
The current legal blood alcohol concentration (BAC) for operating a motor vehicle is 0.08%. However, research shows significant impairment at 0.05% BAC. In fact, the risk of being killed in a single-vehicle crash with BACs of 0.05% to .079% is up to 21 times higher than for drivers without measurable alcohol.
Legislation to reduce the BAC level to 0.05%, introduced by state Sen. Karl Rhoads (Senate Bill 2384) and state Rep. Chris Todd (House Bill 1935) should be debated and passed into law. It already has the support of Gov. Josh Green.
Opposition to this commonsense safety measure centers around ill-conceived fears that it will scare away visitors and reduce revenue, but when considering solutions to a deadly problem like drunk driving, we must rely on what the evidence tells us. Not only does it show that such action would save lives, but it also does so without discouraging alcohol consumption or increasing arrests.
When Utah reduced its BAC limit from 0.08 to 0.05%, alcohol sales and tourism went up while DUI arrests went down. Approximately 100 countries have some type of 0.05% or lower BAC laws. While their average alcohol consumption is the same or higher than the U.S., their alcohol-related deaths are lower.
One thing we can be certain of is that people come to Hawaii for its beauty and aloha spirit. Let’s help make sure visitors and Hawaii residents can travel safer by reducing the BAC level to 0.05%.
Cathy Chase
President, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety
Washington, DC
