On October 19, 2023, HBA’s National Honors Society (NHS) and the HBA Student Council Community Relations Committee partnered up with freshman Madan Abe to hold a sign-waving event to promote pedestrian safety awareness.
Abe, as part of his 8th grade Capstone Project last year, wanted to improve on pedestrian safety specifically at the Pali Highway and Wyllie Street intersection after an HBA student was hit by a car running a red light last October. Describing his goal for the sign waving event, Abe said, “My hope is that everyone who is crossing the street doesn’t have to be worried about getting hit by a car. They still should be looking for cars before they cross and not be on their phones but they should be able to not feel afraid to cross a street.”
According NHS T.E.A.M (Together Everyone Achieves More) Committee co-chair Kobe Chan, the overall planning process was simple. At the start of the school year, Chan had the idea to contact Abe to organize a pedestrian safety sign waving event.
Approximately 20 students took part in the event and Chan noticed that not all drivers responded positively to them. He recalled, “A negative part of the experience was when other drivers would give us weird looks of disapproval.” Despite that, Chan hopes that overall, the sign waving made a positive impact. NHS advisor Sean Aoyagi believes that pedestrian safety has universal importance. He said, “Pedestrian safety is important not only in the HBA community but all over the world.” As for Abe, he hopes that the sign waving event will become an annual occurrence so that the message is not forgotten.
