How to Drive in Hawaii (renting, hotel, minimum wage)

[goldenplover]

Originally Posted by Loysum

I don't even take the freeways where I live..I am from Hawaii and don't think I'll ever get used to people driving 80 miles per hour plus......jeepers.....it's an accident just waiting to happen. I am one of those people who actually drive the speed limit and know I drive everyone nuts asthey try and get around me.

After living in Hawaii, (particularly during those crucial "learning to drive" moments) I am the same way- I don't take the freeeways unless I absolutely have to- and usually I make Mr. Golden drive if we have to go faster than 45. He says he doesn't mind though- he's from the east coast- apparently people drive quite a bit quicker and crazier there Although...I've never ever seen so many people in a rush to get somewhere as in texas...I don't know how many times I have gotten cut off. Perhaps people should leave a couple minutes earlier so they are on time?

[Loysum]

See this is the same thing I am thinking...as someone is flying by me I'm like "well if you get in an accident do you realize how long it's going to take to wait for the police? Not to mention your car may not even be drivable." So slow down!
I rode with my brother in Los Angeles a few times and had to close my eyes...talk about fast driving and fast cuts in and out of cars. I was so shocked that he had learned to drive that way. Ha.

[Jungjohann]

Back in the seventies, I'm driving from Kihei to Kahului on the Mokulele Highway, all two lanes of it. Kind of in a hurry, that was back in the day when I was new to the Islands, and had a tendency to be in a hurry. There's this tiny Datsun truck a few cars in front of me, cruising along at around 30 MPH, with occasional burts of speed all the way up to around 40, infrequent, but appreciated. Anyways, the cars in front of me are passing this little truck, I end up right behind him, and you can just barely see the top of his head, the guy is tiny......I'm thinking I'll pass him, I'm thinking about it, and, all of the sudden it clicked, like a lightbulb over my head......"You're on an Island, behind some ancient tiny Philipino man, (which turned out to be the case, what's the hurry?") So, I just settled back, turned up the radio a bit, cruised along with manong, and enjoyed the scenery, with tourists and locals passing both of us.....oh well.......Haven't been in a hurry since, they do, after all, call it "Hawaiian time"

Aloha

Oh, and for those of you who have been to Maui, Mokulele, the name of the highway, means "Flying Boat", or Hawaiian for airplane, there is still a WW2 flightstrip there on the side of the highway, complete with what remains of the tower

[Loysum]

Originally Posted by HankDfrmSD

Every six months I move back and forth between Kailua, Oahu and San Diego, so for six months I Drive Aloha, and for the other six I Drive California, or get run over!

It takes a while to make the transitions!

Hank

Only problem is I've been living away from the islands since 1993. Ha. Pretty long transition time yeh!?

[Mar0]

I also get the reverse-tourists who drive too slow. Whenever I drive to work, I am ALWAYS behind tourists (Koloa Rd to Poipu...) and people are sometimes going 5mph no lie to take pics/videos when they drive. And here I am, late to work AGAIN.

[hotzcatz]

I think they drive slow because they figure if folks wanted to go fast they'd be over on the "expressway" or "freeway" not realizing that in many places in the state there IS ONLY ONE ROAD. Our one road looks like their two lane backroads rural slow type of highway or even the roads that run through an old residential neighborhood so they figure driving slow is okay on the road. Going over a bridge they slow down to 5 mph to take a picture. Argh! I guess their mind goes on vacation when the rest of them goes on vacation.

If they are local folks who want to drive slow (there's actually quite a few of us who like poking along at ten or fifteen miles below the speed limit) we pull over when there are folks behind us so they can go around. It is much more pleasant to drive along without cars in the rear view mirror. Driving slow allows for better scenery, too.

We went to the mainland on vacation and we were driving to the Florida Keys. There was this wide really boring highway with four to six lanes each direction and cars and HUGE Winnebagos zooming along at ninety miles an hour. It was an impressive concrete corridor but very boring after a mile or two. We were going eighty and some Winnebago which had a gray patch of hair visible above the eyeballs barely clearing the steering wheel was riding our bumper trying to pass. (There are four other lanes of highway for the guy to be in and we were already in the slow lane!) We got off at the next exit and tried to never go onto one of those "freeways" again. The little side roads were much more pleasant with roadside fruit stands, interesting little cafe's and things. We didn't get where we were going anywhere near as fast but we had a good time being where we were along the way.

Later on during that same trip, we were going for several miles on one of those big freeways again since there weren't any little roads to take and we met up with about three miles of cars backed up on the freeway. It seems there had been an accident on the OTHER side of the freeway and there was a helicopter coming down to the accident scene when we finally got past the traffic jam. The accident had happened at such speed that the car was literally in pieces all over the place. There wasn't any one piece of the car in a large enough chunk to identify even vaguely what sort of car it had been. And it never showed up on the evening news or in their local newspapers, either, so that must be some sort of commonplace sort of accident!

[MadRussian]

"Ever notice that anyone going slower than you is an idiot, but anyone going faster is a maniac?"
George Carlin

[Jimbo's]

When I was there last it was the same way, everyone was in a hurry but that's the same as the mainland. I can't stand the not so courtesy drivers though which is not normal from when I drove in the islands.

[treedonkey]

The OP seems to harbor some animosity against toursists. He should probably realize that the Hawaii's economy is powered by tourism. Last I checked, coconut sales weren't exactly exploding.

[hotzcatz]

A tourist economy is like being hooked on drugs. Happy while hooked but eventually lethal overall. A tourist economy creates low paying service jobs for our people and all the hotels are owned by folks who don't live here so a lot of the tourist money goes off island anyway. All we see is the minimum wage hotel work/bus driver/wait help jobs. We then have all these tourists competing for space on/in our roads, restaurants, beaches, parks, clinics, etc. Of course it is a love/hate relationship with tourists. All residents of Hawaii put up with them on a daily basis - such as driving with them on the roads - even if we don't directly work in the tourist industry.