Making Memories: Yellow Car Rules

Here are my family's official rules for playing "Yellow Car" while on the road. We often play this game on short trips, but the Jedi announced we were going to have a Yellow Car Marathon game during our road trip to Buffalo NY last fall. All the car activities we did during that trip were a big hit with the kids. So much so, in fact, that when we were discussing our much shorter trip to Marietta OH, Toa immediately asked which car games we were going to play.

After a frantic search, and several stress induced chocolate chip cookies, I found the beat up yellow legal pad with our yellow car rules, the yellow car official tally, and the results of our ABC I Spy games. For yellow car, the person who spots, and calls, a yellow vehicle first gets a point. I kept a running tally on the official legal pad during the whole trip. Many of these rules have been fined tuned after great discussion sprung from hotly contested points during previous, shorter, games. I'm not going to clutter up the rules by explaining why each stipulation was needed, but oh, they were needed.

Sadly, while I can share the rules, I can't share the illustrations children added to the rule page. You'll just have to let your children add their own illustrations. Oh, and everyone should sign their name to the official rules before entering the contest. For our marathon game to Buffalo and back, a homemade trophy topped with a yellow hot wheels car was awarded.

Yellow Car Rules

What Counts?

• Yellow cars, yellow school buses, yellow trucks
• A self-propelled vehicle which is at least half yellow, whether it is currently propelling itself or not
• The yellow trailer of a tractor-trailer truck counts if the whole tractor part is yellow, even if the cab is not yellow
• The cab of a tractor-trailer truck counts, even if the trailer portion isn't yellow

What Doesn't Count?

• Construction vehicles ("snorts" writes in one child) only count if they are doing their job or moving under their own power
• School Buses parked in front of a school building or in a bus lot do not count individually, see below
• In any one group sighting, the entire cluster may only count for two points.

Color?

• Yellow. Not gold, not yellow-green, not yellow-orange, or schmorange, "not," adds a child, "sha-la-la-la morange. Just yellow."

Darkness?

• Yellow car can not be played during mandatory headlight hours. If the headlights of your vehicle must be turned on, the game is on hold.

Ownership?

• When the word "yellow" leaves your mouth, and is heard by at least one other person in the car ("no bat voice" writes a child), the point is yours.
• Ties are allowed and will be awarded by the official scorekeeper or the driver. Yelling yellow as fast as you can after someone else has already said yellow does not qualify as a tie.
• "Look there's one" does not earn a point. Another passenger who then calls "yellow" may take that point.

Calling Wolf?

• Calling wolf too often, chanting yellow,  or trying to mention the word yellow as often as possible in your speech.....all these infractions can result in a 15 to 30 minute suspension from the game.

How about you? Does your family have a favorite road trip game or car activity? Please use the linky tool below to link directly to your post.