What does all of this mean??? Tourist mentality!! What is TOURIST MENTALITY?? You know, people saunter wherever they want. They do not follow any of the normal walking rules and forget DRIVING RULES. Man, those things go out the window when people are on vacation!!
It really is amazing that we don’t read about more people dying on vacation. But, see what I have learned living here is that WE, the PEOPLE LIVING HERE learn quickly to adjust to the TOURIST. I drive very carefully. Honestly, people saunter across the street at any point in the street and they assume you will stop. We joke now, 10 bucks for that tourist, 20 bucks for that one and so on. Depends on the day and how pissed at the price tag on their head.
Tourist driving is by far the worse, the absolute worse. They stop right in the middle of the road when they don’t know where to turn. I mean it is amazing there are not more fender benders. They make left turns from the wrong lane and forget them going into the center lane to turn. It is like they forget the use of the center lane. Oh, my gosh and they drive like 10mph because they are afraid they will miss their turn. Here is a thought if you miss your turn you can turn around and go back!!!!
Now, in Sedona it is all about the views. Therefore it gets even more dangerous. Why you ask? People just stop! Literally, just when the fancy hits them and slightly pull off the road and snap pictures. Typically, there isn’t a lot of room for this and it is not safe. I have to admit Sedona finally addressed the issue and did some major roadwork to try and make this safer but the city couldn’t cover all the beautiful areas. In addition, Sedona is careful about disturbing the beauty. Therefore, unsafe pulling over still happens. Oh, and then the people hanging out of their cars snapping pictures or driving and snapping pictures, not safe, not safe at all.
U Turns galore. People just turn the car around in the middle of the road at any point. Oh and I do mean any point. The other day we were driving home and this young lady was doing a U Turn on the large hill on the MAIN HIGHWAY in Sedona. As we came down the hill us along with several other cars all slowed down while this young lady did her U Turn. She just laughed as we stopped and waited. Please try to envision just driving down a four way highway and coming over a hill to see a car doing a U TURN across all FOUR lanes stopping ALL TRAFFIC. C’mon this doesn’t happen in your daily life and you know it!!
Anyways, I am doing my best to adjust. I am the city girl living in a small tourist town. I hope you don’t see me on the news one day for killing a tourist. I swear it would be an accident but send me my 20 bucks because I will need it!!!
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Hon, I live in DC. This happens LITERALLY all the time here.
Good luck. We call them “tourons” when they’re being especially idiotic.
Do you have nicknames for the tourists? People around here seem to have a few for them. I stay away from the lake during the summer to avoid the tourists, but I guess they can be quite obnoxious (as you are seeing.)
Okay, well not too may people come to NJ to be tourists, so why are there so many BAD drivers around here!!???
Oh I know those tourists! San Diego can be part of that touristy thing…although, San Diegans themselves are pretty bad drivers so the tourists only add to it in they don’t know our horrible driving ways. It’s double bad!
Hope you manage to avoid them all!
Just stopping by for a visit! I am and have always been a country girl never lived in a city or tourist town…..I am just hoping and will forever more cautious not to be one of those tourist,now that I know there could be a bounty on our heads! Great post and great point!
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