Types of Donkeys

 

Ecirphr, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

There are several types of donkeys:

1. grey

2. brown

3. black

4. tourist behind the wheel

High Contrast, CC BY 3.0 DE <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/deed.en>, via Wikimedia Commons

I have chosen to live in a tourist town. The same factors that make a city a great place to visit makes it a great place to live. But there are drawbacks.

When I am a tourist, I try to be respectful and not cause inconvenience to the local residents, though sometimes it can't be avoided. You don't know your way around. You don't know the local customs. It's embarrassing to cause others inconvenience. But it's apparent that not everyone thinks that way.

When I lived in Georgia, I chose to live in the mountainous north. People who live there tend to visit Florida for vacation (holiday). But Florida does not have mountains. So the Floridians like to visit the mountains on their vacations. As tourists do, they often make a nuisance of themselves, causing the locals to refer to them as "Floridiots."

My friend Steve Smyth told me a story about this once. Steve grew up in Florida and moved to the mountains of North Georgia. One of his childhood friends came for a visit. Steve took the day off to spend time with his friend. The guy was out driving on a weekday, going 30 miles per hour in a 55 zone. A long line of cars backed up behind them.

Steve said, "What are you doing? Why are you going 25 miles per hour below the speed limit?"

His friend replied, "Man, I'm on vacation! I don't care!"

What a donkey!

We have the same problem here in Flagstaff. Tourist drive 15 miles per hour in a 35, make sudden U-turns across 4 lanes of traffic, put on their turn signals to turn where there is no road or driveway to turn into.

One day I was driving along the busiest road in Flagstaff and an RV was straddling the dashed white line, blocking both lanes, driving 15 to 20 mph. This went on for over a block before the driver finally settled into a left turn lane. It's apparent he didn't know which lane he should be in so he simply blocked both lanes until he could get the information out of his phone. I can't imagine willfully doing something so egocentric. Is he a toddler?

I guess we just have to put up with it. At least we have to until self-driving cars become advanced enough to avoid these problems. We may all be better off when self-driving cars are safe enough to remove the human from the process.