My wife and I moved to Waikoloa Village almost two years ago so we do quite a bit of travelling on the lower highway, 19, and the upper highway, 190, in order to get to and from Kona for shopping.
My wife and I moved to Waikoloa Village almost two years ago so we do quite a bit of travelling on the lower highway, 19, and the upper highway, 190, in order to get to and from Kona for shopping. It has been our experience since moving here that unless you go over the posted speed limit you will be 99 percent of the time be tailgated by the driver behind you. In order to avoid this dangerous practice of the car following too closely behind you I found that going 5 mph over the posted speed limit reduced the 99 percent to about 25 percent. Going 10 mph over the posted speed limit reduced the 99 percent to about 5 percent.
Recently I was driving south on Highway 19 and after going past the Waikoloa Resort Road I found myself tailgated by a car because the car two cars ahead of me was travelling under the posted speed limit of 55 mph. I waited until the road was clear enough to overtake both cars to stop being tailgated by the car behind me and unfortunately I went a little too fast (I have a BMW 7 Series that would cruise all day at 130 mph and has a top speed of 160 mph) around both cars and was pulled over by the unmarked police car directly in front of me. When I explained to the police officer that, yes, I was speeding over the posted speed limit to get around his car and the one in front of him but it was better that than being rear ended by the car behind me if an emergency stop was needed. His response was to tell me to pull to the right shoulder and let tailgaters pass me. I did not engage any further conversation with the office because he was giving me a break on my speed. What I would have liked to tell the officer was that I would never get to Kona (or back) if I pulled to the right for every tailgater. I was expecting a California style (we are from Los Angeles) cost for the speeding ticket of around $500 but it was only $162 (no wonder the county is hard up for money).
After this I became the most hated driver on the Big Island because I stuck to the speed limit wherever I drove – I have always used the car cruise control wherever I drive to get the best gas mileage. I kept this up for two weeks and then added 3 mph to the posted speed limit for the speed that I drove. For those two weeks whenever I drove Highway 190 I pulled over at the Big Island Country Club and the scenic lookout to let cars go by me if I had a large amount of cars behind me. I did not pull over on Highway 19 as there are plenty of opportunities to safely pass on that highway, unlike Highway 19.
I attribute this tailgating problem to several things:
1. The fact that most roads on the Big Island are only one lane in each direction with few opportunities for passing.
2. The fact that few drivers use cruise control and so slow down going up hills because they forget to push on the gas pedal to maintain their speed. This causes the cars behind them to bunch up together and start tailgating each other.
3. The fact that being a tourist destination we have drivers from all over the world with too many of them just plain poor drivers for our island roads.
So what do I do now? I drive at 5 mph over the posted speed limit if there are less than four cars around me. If there are four or more cars around me I drive at the “pack” speed, unless it is more than 10 mph over the speed limit, which I will not do. After some very close calls for head on collisions (cars coming toward me drifting over the center line and crazy overtaking) I now have dash cams in both of our cars, one pointing in the direction of travel and one pointing where I have come from. I walked away with bruises from a BMW 5 series that was totaled with me in it and intend on surviving impatient drivers hitting me head on in my BMW 7 series and having the proof that it was their fault and not mine.
Colin Luck is a resident of Waikoloa Village
