I don’t know what it is, but in my experience, Hawai’i driving is just so much better than anywhere else I’ve lived–especially when it comes to this exact scenario. When there’s a lane closure, most people just… get over. Give a shaka, get a shaka, done. When you do have someone blast past everyone to try and merge at the last possible minute people just… let them in. Might get stink eye for do it. Maybe “one finger shaka.” But it’s either some tourist who doesn’t know better and we all feel smug knowing that they have to go back to where they came from or it’s someone in a genuine hurry and just let em go.

I think it’s partly due to Hawai’i having a more collectivist mindset. Everybody is just trying to get to where they need to be, everyone kind of understands that traffic can suck and so no one is too concerned with “being on time” (again, my experience). Plus there aren’t any billboards on the roads (at least not that I’ve seen) and you pretty much have something pretty to look at the whole time you’re in traffic. Lower speed limits too. It’s peaceful. You rarely hear someone honk. Though I will say that I’ve noticed drivers getting more aggressive as more local kine people move away.

I went back to Florida a few years ago to visit my mom while she still lived there and it was miserable to drive anywhere. I got the sense that no one wanted to be where they were–they didn’t want to be in their car so they raced off to work, where they also did not want to be, so they raced home, where they also did not want to be; all in Florida where I feel like most people who live there don’t want to be tbh. I used to be an angry and impatient driver. In Hawai’i I’m like one grandpa. I stay in slow lane and drive the speed limit.