Living in Florida, we get a major thundershower most summer afternoons that last between 15 minutes to an hour. What I can not stand is those tourists that hit their brakes and procedure to travel 25 mph on the interstate following the first drops of rain. If you aren’t experienced driving in this kind of weather, pull off the road. Do not go slow and create traffic jams for the rest of the afternoon because you would rather go slow than wait it out.
Well, that’s clearly the grocery store’s fault, not the tourists’.
I’d suggest this sort of thing happens anywhere you get lots of scenery and narrow roads. I notice this a great deal on the through roads in Canada’s national parks in the Rockies–a vehicle with out-of-province plates has slowed to look at a mountain, or an elk, or another mountain, or maybe a bear, and traffic behind it just crawls. Problem is, that these are major roads connecting major cities in BC to the rest of Canada, used by trucks, scheduled buses, and people just trying to get somewhere. The authorities are double-tracking the roads when and where they can (and budgetary considerations play a role too); but until the job is done, it would be much appreciated if the tourists who want to look at the scenery pull over and stop in one of the many pullouts to do so.
I live in NYC. IMO tourists generally aren’t any more a pain in the ass than NY’ers can be. The only beef I have is with drivers. If you happen to find yourself driving in NYC, it’ll be ok. Just follow the rules and you’ll do fine. You don’t have to out-NYC-drive the NYC drivers. People are just trying to get to where they’re going in one piece. If you miss your destination just go around the block and try again. It’s ok to let people merge in front of you. It won’t make you any less of a man. Any advantage you gain by pulling some wild-ass stunt will be nullified because that’s the way it is. So just chill and enjoy the ride.
And if you’re on the Harlem River drive coming off the GW bridge and you missed that first Manhattan exit? For Christ’s sake, no, you can’t stop and back up into traffic coming off the bridge. Damn.
I was recently in London for a couple days, and boy do they know how to stand correctly on escalators! I was so impressed and envious! I usually don’t mind tourists, but here in NYC it seems they are always *there *in front of you not moving. Pick up your feet and move aside! Stop standing in herds blocking the way. There are people trying to get places! Argh!
I used to live in Gatlinburg. Pigeon Forge traffic is bad enough with good drivers.
Attention visitors from Ohio: We fine folks in the south know you can easily make u-turns in Pigeon Forge if you’re patient. It’s not kosher to decide to suddenly make a right turn across three lanes of traffic.
Myrtle Beach, SC here.
Getting stuck behind some out of state driver who:
-has to slow to a crawl at each intersection or side road so they can read the street signs. Hint: If you want to find the beach, drive EAST - you’ll hit it eventually.
-is trying to see if there is a line at the restaurant they’re going past - ooo, there’s a line? at 5pm? when everyone else wants to eat? really?
Just going to a convenience store can be an ordeal.
Don’t even get me started on Bike Week.