General Info

Accidents
(except MVAs)

Types of Injury

Motor Vehicle Accidents

 

 

Estate of Blink - Making Accident Information Public

The recent case of Estate of Blink v. State, Hawai'i Supreme Court No. 25430 (February 20, 2007) reaffirmed that the State is responsible both to repair and to give notice/warning of defects on its roadways. Instead of giving notice and warning however, as reported in The Honolulu Advertiser on March 14 and 15, 2007, the State DOT has a current policy of concealing information about accidents on Hawai'i's roadways in a misguided effort to avoid responsibily for its failings. The Advertiser claimed that studies show that this policy has delayed road safety improvements which would have prevented accidents which are now occurring on our roadways. In short, citizens of this State are now having a spouse or child needlessly killed or permanently disabled on a defective roadway because our State DOT has been hiding information about dangerous highway conditions instead of publicizing them and correcting the conditions. Some may think that this violates the public trust.