Motorcade Practice

The Honolulu Police Department's Solo Bike Unit practices stopping traffic for a motorcade with other officers posing as the VIP vehicles. A few weeks before dignitaries arrive, the motorcycle officers will practice at various locations around the island, to do rolling roadblocks.

In the 1980s, while walking up University Avenue toward the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. I was stopped by an HPD Solo Bike officer before the underpass of the Interstate H1. The motorcade for President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan were transiting from the Kāhala Hilton Hotel (now the Kāhala Hotel & Resort) to Hickam Air Force Base (now Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam). Other officers blocked traffic on University Avenue, as well as the on-ramps and off-ramps. I waited for about 15 minutes for the Reagans to pass by, listening to my Walkman and smoked a cigarette. Once their motorcade passed by, the officer said I was cleared to go on, and he sped off for his next roadblock assignment.