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400 to 600 people travel the most popular road in all of Hawaii each day. Despite its popularity and beautiful scenery, this particular road is extremely dangerous. According to SF Gate, the Hana Highway, winding 52-miles along the Eastern coast of Maui, has been heavily traveled by tourists for nearly a century.
The road features 56 one lane bridges, 1,000-foot drops, and multiple "blind curves." When travelers take this road, they often stop to take photos along the side without checking to see if it is legal. Hana Highway Regulation community coordinator Napua Hueu told SF Gate that the organization is looking to have directional arrows drawn to make the road safer for travelers.
“We’re really trying to have the industry and state of Hawaii leadership understand that this is very much a Disneyland without any directions or personnel. Everybody’s just kind of like crawling out everywhere, you know, not buckling in for the rides that they’re on, and we really need to just have some basic, you know, directional arrows [that] would help at this point.” Hueu mentioned guided tours as one way to travel more safely along the road.
“All of the legal tour operators, again, don’t go to the sites that are technically on private property and are a hazard for visitors in general.” The Hawaii Tourism Authority hopes to gather staff to "help direct visitors" around the road in the future.