I just thought I'd share this tragedy that happened early Tuesday morning at approx 1:30a.

A family was traveling home from a birthday party in two vehicles. Mom was in a van, and her two sons, nephews, and family friend were in a Honda Civic, 5 people in the Civic. The Honda was behind the van, then another car raced past the Honda and the van. Apparently the driver of the Honda didn't like that, so he passed the van in pursuit of the other car going out of the view of the mother in the van. A little while later the mother noticed some dust ahead, and she knew something was wrong.
As she got closer, she noticed there was an accident.
She then stops and gets out to investigate, only to see one of her sons hanging out of what looked like the back window of the Honda. She knew her son was dead, but what made it worse, she had another son, 13yrs old in the Honda also, and by the condition of the car, she knew he was dead too. She could not call 911 because her phone was in the Honda, so she stopped a car coming by and they called 911.
All five passengers in the Honda died as the car made impact with a palm tree. The police report in the newspaper said the speedometer was stuck at 90mph and there were no skid marks on the road. The car was totally destroyed. The only way to identify the car was by the back tail light and the rear wheel.
The driver and the front passenger were thrown from the vehicle, and no one was wearing their seat belts.
A sad tragedy.
There was no mention of the other car that passed them.
Street racing can be, and is deadly. Skilled drivers know that, but most other people are not as skilled, and don't know the limits of their vehicle or themselves.
So for all you skilled street racers, know the skills of the person you are racing, or you may be a contributor to their death. And knowing that could mess you up for life as well as the surrviving family.

Damn, I feel bad for that mother and for the people involved.

But it doesn't sound like they were racing. The car raced past the Honda and the van, meaning it woul dhave taken the Civic sometime to catch up to that car. I assume they were going 55-60 already. In a matter of 10 seconds or so, it would be at 90. Sounds like the driver just lost control or something. Was the Civic driver trying to catch up to the speeding car just to let the person in that car know that they should not be speeding like that?

Also, where did you get this story from? Is there a link?

Sounds more like simple "wreckless driving" than "racing"... but you make a good point about the risks involved to all on the road and bad judgement...

Sorry to hear about. Always saddens me more to hear about hawai'i peeps than mainland peeps, no offense to mainlanders. Where was this? On H1?

It's hard as hell to get up to that speed on kalaniana'ole ....

The Honda was trying to catch up to the other car to pass it.
It may not have been a race in the sense of a start/finish, it might have been more of "don't pass me like that" attitude or even peer presure, in which case the other car may not have done anything wrong with the pass. So yes Dave is correct in saying that it doesn't sound like a race.
But it could have been a race with the same results.
Just a heads up, especially for the over confident driver.

This happened on the North Shore right outside of Haleiwa. The story was in the Honolulu Advertiser. You can try this link and go to March 18th date for the story and picture.

www.thehonoluluadvertiser.com