Residents have been complaining for years about the dangers associated with their city’s growing abandoned vehicle problem.
Now, it appears that authorities are planning to get ahead of the issue with a new bill.
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Abandoned vehicles have plagued residents of Honolulu, Hawaii in the 2010s – with headlines highlighting the problem in 2018 and 2019.
Thousands of abandoned vehicles were reported to the police in 2015, with the highest number recorded in 2017, with 1,221 on the island, he said. Honolulu Civil Raid in 2019.
“Abandoned vehicles are everywhere on our island,” police Major Robert Wagner told the channel.
Vehicles left to the elements are rarely left alone — within a short period, says Geneva Jackson, who works closely with Hawaiian Acres Road Corp, they are often destroyed.
Read more about abandoned cars
Wheels and tires are removed, then windows are often broken and sometimes vandalized by being set on fire.
She even found vehicles facing their roofs to make it easier to remove the catalytic converters.
“We have a horrible problem with abandoned vehicles,” she said.
“What I’ve seen just this year is that the Police Department has been working on removing abandoned vehicles.”
In 2023, the state Department of Environmental Management’s Abandoned/Abandoned Vehicle Section began a free vehicle disposal program to remove abandoned vehicles from private property, the Spectrum Local News.
The program gives residents the ability to remove vehicles that no longer run from their properties to prevent them from being dumped on city streets.
With the new program, residents can request vehicle removal online.
If the vehicle in question meets certain strict requirements, the City of Honolulu will remove the vehicle free of charge.
The program was part of a broader effort to clean up the island, as in June, FOX affiliate KHON2 reported a new bill passed to “combat” the looming abandoned vehicle crisis.
Lawmakers considered that vacant vehicles acted as “magnets” for illegal activities, such as hiding weapons and drugs.
The second program started by the state in the same year was a storage program that helped prevent vehicle towing.
“If you’re going out of town or you know you’re going to be traveling for a while, you can store it so you don’t have to accumulate past records,” Honolulu City Council member Audria Tupola said during a video call.
Our rate of abandoned vehicles has decreased significantly between the last few years and now, almost at a rate of 50%.
Kim Hashiro, director of DCS
In addition to the storage issue, Tupola said another reason people might abandon their vehicles is the high associated costs.
“If something happens, maybe you lose your job, you go between jobs and then you start to delay registering, it’s almost impossible to try to recover from two to three years,” she explained.
One of the ways she plans to help prevent vehicle abandonment is to work with the Department of Customer Service (DCS) Motor Vehicle Control Division.
“So I’m proposing that we have leniency for those who have expired registrations, maybe more than five or seven years ago,” she said.
How to report an abandoned car
Reporting an abandoned vehicle is important to keep city streets safe and clean
An abandoned car is not only an eyesore, but also a danger to the surrounding community, as pests and rodents can take refuge inside, in the engine compartment or in the trunk.
Leaking fluids can be dangerous to the environment, as many vehicle fluids are toxic and can wreak havoc on ecosystems if they enter waterways.
They can also encourage crime, with several cities like Oakland, California, reporting that drug dealers can use them to hide and steal drugs or weapons.
Abandoned vehicles can also decrease property values.
So they are worth it. The specific contact information for your city’s abandoned car hotline may vary, but the required vehicle information is the same.
When reporting an abandoned vehicle, the police will need:
- The exact address of the vehicle
- Steering column information (broken, missing, intact, etc.)
- Vehicle condition (severely damaged, broken windows, leaking fluids, missing body panels or doors, etc.)
- Brand and model
- Color
- Body style (pickup, SUV, sedan, etc.)
- License plate number and state, if applicable
- VIN
Many cities will allow residents to report abandoned vehicles online via an online form or via an online form.
Source: ABC affiliate WPVI-TV
“If we can get that up front, we’ll have less, so that’s great because on the back end, we’re still paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to get abandoned vehicles off the road.”
According to DCS Director Kim Hashiro, the number of abandoned vehicles in May 2023 was decreasing by almost half.
“Our abandoned vehicle rate has decreased significantly between the last few years and now, almost at a 50% rate,” she said.
The bill has a tentative effective date of January 2025, as long as the DMV is interested in updating the information.
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
