Aloha Signage

Hawaii had a real laid back attitude to signs. Consider the two official signs shown above. Nice graphic of falling rocks, with a human figure. The Humpback whale sign requires some closer scrutiny: notice how it illustrates the consequence of hitting a whale -- you may be thrown out of your boat! And yes, the whale and boat are to scale, and yes, with 10,000 whales in a fairly confined bay area they are abundant.

Food related signs are usually fun. I like the concept of pizza delivery the Hawaiian way. Do not feed the hippies sign was on a picnic bench at a surfer beach. One restuarant we patronize had a video camera scanning the surf, the beach, the town sidewalk above... and invited diners to text message their friends at home with the coordinates of the camera and they could be instantly envious.

Now I can understand a sign indicating a minimum clearance or maximum vehicle height, but why sign a maximum clearance? As shown on the right photo, the clearance was actually way less on the left ramp under the overhang.

There are tsunami warning sirens all over the Hawaiian islands. Some towns showed the most obvious evacuation route, usually if the town was on a flat area. Otherwise they trusted people to know to go "up".

Even in Hawaii, some people want to emulate somewhere else. In this case, I was surprised to see Maui trying to identify itself with ... Toronto?