The lights are the tail lights of the vehicles going by. This is the 10 freeway heading down into Indeo, California. It was early morning and some of the main people using the freeway at this time are 16 wheelers, which explains the high red lights since they have lights covering the trailers they pull. :) As far as tripods go, I just wedged my camera against my rear-view mirror and the window of my van and held it there as steady as humanly possible for the full 30 second exposure.