Drunk JTB Hawaii Oli Oli tourist shuttle driver arrested for homicide

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JTB Hawaii is one of the biggest inbound travel operator in Hawaii. The company may be in big trouble today after one of their Oli Oli Visitors Shuttle drivers was arrested for being intoxicated and after he killed a pedestrian while operating a shuttle with Japanese visitors on board. Many Japanese tourists use Oli Oli Shuttle for Waikiki and Honolulu transportation.

JTB Hawaii is one of the biggest inbound travel operator in Hawaii. The company may be in big trouble today after one of their Oli Oli Visitors Shuttle drivers was arrested for being intoxicated and after he killed a pedestrian while operating a shuttle with Japanese visitors on board. Many Japanese tourists use Oli Oli Shuttle for Waikiki and Honolulu transportation.

Today was also another opportunity for Charley’s Taxi CEO Dale Evans to discuss public transport safety on PBS TV Honolulu on the popular Insights program. Charley’s Taxi is the second largest taxi company in Honolulu.

Dale Evans has been outspoken on tourism and passenger safety in the commercial transportation business for some time. No other taxi company executive has invested so much time and money in demonstrating safety is first.

Hawaii is experiencing an alarming increase in the number of pedestrians killed on Hawaii roads.  34 pedestrians have died so far this year, six times more than in 2017.  More than 31 people have also died in auto accidents.  The biggest cause: inattentive driving behavior.  People aren’t paying enough attention.

Tonight there is another reason why a 76-year-old man died in a new trendy Honolulu neighborhood known as Kakaako. The reason most likely is a drunk driver or a driver under the influence of drugs while driving the Oli Oli Tourist Trolley Shuttle operated by JTB Hawaii.

Police said that at about 3:49 p.m. the male driver of a trolley with five or six passengers was turning north onto Cooke from Auahi when he struck a Honolulu resident who was in a crosswalk on Cooke. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene.

A group of Japanese tourists, passengers on the open air shuttle bus, were taking photos of the fresco painted buildings in Kakaako when their intoxicated driver hit a pedestrian and killed him on the spot.

“Those tourist trolley drivers are very reckless. They drive too fast around Ala Moana and show no courtesy to pedestrians”, was a comment posted by a Honolulu resident,

There are a lot of tourist walking around taking pictures of the fresco painted buildings. Some of them do not aware of the traffic situation around them.

All drivers who shuttle people around should be tested for alcohol and drugs at random. The State of Hawaii relies on tourism, and transporting tourists should be a safe undertaken.

While this was happening Dale Evans, CEO of Charley’s Taxi was on Hawaii Public TV on a

In Honolulu,  Charley’s Taxi invested $100,000.00 to purchase Hawaii’s only privately owned driving simulator. They are the second largest Taxi Company on Oahu.

Charley’s Taxi has used a new VIRAGE VS500 Driving Simulator to coach more than 240 drivers on how to improve their driving safety.  The drivers recently completed the simulator’s “distracted driving” scenario, which simulates real-world dangers and consequences for drivers who take their eyes off the road or hands off the wheel.

It was not clear what the requirement is for commercial drivers to transport visitors on the  Oli Oli Trolley Tourist Shuttle is. Having a drunk commercial driver kill a local Hawaii resident while transporting tourists is not good news for the Japanese Tours operator JTB. eTN reached out to JTB, the Japanese operator of the Oli Oli Trolley, but at 6.30 pm their offices were closed, and calls from the JTB Headquarters in Japan were not returned.

As a positive example, Charley’s Taxi has a zero-tolerance policy for most safety-related violations by their drivers. ETN reported on How Charley’s Taxi in Honolulu made Uber speechless. A discussion on public transportation is a hot issue in Honolulu.

The Oli Oli shuttle driver refused a field sobriety test and was arrested for suspicion of first-degree negligent homicide and driving under the influence of an intoxicant, according to police.

About the author

Avatar of Juergen T Steinmetz

Juergen T Steinmetz

Juergen Thomas Steinmetz has continuously worked in the travel and tourism industry since he was a teenager in Germany (1977).
He founded eTurboNews in 1999 as the first online newsletter for the global travel tourism industry.

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