Caught on camera: Man drives van in reverse
HONOLULU, Hawaii (KHON) – Many were astonished to see a man driving his van backward along a busy road in Hawaii.
24-Hour News 8’s sister station, KHON, received video via Report It that shows the vehicle traveling in reverse in the left, ewa-bound lane of Kapiolani Boulevard late Tuesday morning.
KHON spoke to a witness who couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
‘Didn’t stop until around Piikoi (Street), so he went a couple hundred yards going backwards down Kapiolani,” Jim Quimbey said.
The recording shows the van traveling for about a block, but it’s unclear how long the van had actually been driving in reverse.
“He was swerving, and he’s lucky there was pretty light traffic on a work day,” Quimbey said. “I thought I was going to see a car accident. I didn’t know what was going on with the guy. It made no sense.”
Quimbey says he didn’t notice any other vehicles stopping or honking their horns.
“He was going pretty fast,” he said. “I would say he was going around the speed limit, which I think is around 30 (mph), which is pretty fast to be going backward.”
A spokeswoman with the Honolulu Police Department said no one had reported it to police, therefore the driver was not cited or arrested.
Police say driving backward on the road is illegal and if you see any reckless driving, call 911.
“He could have done a lot of things to avoid that,” Quimbey said. “He could have stopped and taken a right or taken a left, done a U-turn or something.”
As far as enforcement, it’s difficult to make out the license plate or the driver’s face.
We also reached out to a driving instructor who was concerned by what he saw, and said he’s never seen anything like this before.