Tag Archives: Vehicles

Seeing blue, seeing red

A car brakes at the sight of a police car in Hawi Hawaii

We’ve all done it; I know I have. See a police car and we hit the brakes. Doesn’t matter if we’re going 5 mph at the time. It’s a reflex action.

So on this day, I was walking into town and saw the police car, with its little blue light on top, and thought I’d take photos of the cars braking as they saw it. Never mind that the police car is clearly targeting vehicles heading out of town. Never mind that I didn’t see any car speeding. They saw the police car, they hit the brakes. Every single car!

Cars brakes at the sight of a police car in Hawi Hawaii

I find this kind of action fascinating. And on this subject, it’s common here for drivers to flash their lights at other vehicles to warn them of a police speed trap up ahead. This is something that drives me nuts.

First up, these drivers might have passed the police car some miles back. On numerous occasions, I’ve been warned in this way and never seen a trace of a police car. Secondly, these drivers flash their lights at anyone, never mind if the oncoming cars clearly aren’t speeding. They still get the warning. And thirdly, and most irritating, It’s widely understood that the police here won’t pull you over if you’re going 5 mph or so over the speed limit. They’re looking for drivers ripping along well over the limit. So these light-flashing drivers want to warn speeders like that. I don’t. Frankly, I’d like the police to pull them over and ticket them. I don’t want cars whizzing through town at 40 or 50 mph. Give them a ticket and hopefully they’ll slow down a bit.

Posted for Becky’s Squares: Simply Red. See more responses here.

Tail Light

Just a photo of part of one of my car’s tail lights!

Posted for Becky’s Squares: Simply Red. See more responses here.

Clouds and light

I’d like to say I took this photo because I was deeply moved by the bands of light and dark, but the truth is, I was heading home in a long line of traffic going 45 mph in a 55 mph area and there was zero chance anything was going to change. So I pulled over and took photos instead. And I did like the light contrasts on offer, so didn’t regret the stop.

When enough time had passed for me not to catch up to the funeral cortege I’d been following, I put my camera away and got ready to head home. As I did so, a large truck, pulling a trailer, rumbled by on the highway. I sighed, but at least the truck driver had the decency to barrel along as best he was able and we made decent time, even on the hill up from the coast, just before Hawi.

Sporty

An MG car parked in front of a store in Hawi, Hawaii

I spotted this MG in front of the Aloha Man store in Hawi and had to take a photo. I thought it fit right in, even matching the paintwork.

Cybertruck

Elon Musk is in the news again (when is he not?) thanks to his falling out with Donald ~~Duck~~ Trump. This contretemps was big news, which is somewhat surprising since it seemed impossible for it not to happen. When you get two men with overinflated egos, who behave like five-year-olds, what does anyone expect to happen?

Elon is now backing off government work to return to his private interests, one of which is the electric vehicle company, Tesla. This photo is of one of those vehicles, which is commonly known as the Cybertruck.

This is the point where I should say something nice about the Cybertruck. However, the only thing that springs to mind is that I loved reading that raccoons have been climbing on these vehicles and scratching them. Apparently, they think they’re dumpsters! The downside of this news is that now, every time I see one of these vehicles, I can’t help but shout out ‘Muskrat in a dumpster!’ Yes, I can behave like a five-year-old too.

I’ve seen this Cybertruck several times, and I can’t decide whether the paint job makes the truck look better or worse than the usual shiny metal look. My initial thought is it’s worse. I thought the shiny metal look was the one redeeming feature of these trucks, and I liked the echo of the original Ford Model T, where Henry Ford allegedly said, “Any color the customer wants, as long as it’s black.” I wonder if Ford had any trouble with raccoons?

The Numbers Game #74

A monument commemorating Ikua Purdy, a Hawaiian paniolo — This statue in Waimea celebrates the role of paniolos in the region. (Original post here.)

The idea of The Numbers Game is to enter a number into the search bar of your computer and then post a selection of the photos that turn up. This week’s number is 195. Captions are on the photos. You can see more responses here.