They're in season

Tourist time is peaking, and parking is tightening, but not thanks to these guys, here from Canada for the big regatta (along with Denmark's crown prince and a few thousand others from a dozen other countries).

The Vancouver boys, who stayed across the street, did all their business by bike and moped, so the only other vehicle they left on the street was a very heavy-duty pickup they'd used to pull their sailboat almost 3,600 miles.

In season here, you get used to the "Hey! I've got a horn!" beeps, echoed by others who have recently discovered their own buttons. Charming at first, they begin to grate after the 20th or 50th or 100th in a day. And of course they're a huge hazard: heedless of danger (this is paradise, after all; what could happen?), clueless about safe operation of an unfamiliar vehicle in strange territory, and often tipsy -- but in those factors they are identical to other tourists in cars or on foot. Here, you drive at their own risk.

But at least they're not roaring in on 90-decibel Harleys. Our friend Sullins contends, along with a letter-writer in the Citizen this week, that it might be nice if the cops actually enforced existing state laws limiting motorcycle noise to reasonable limits, instead of declaring all bets off.

Go for quality in tourists, he says, not quantity -- and he wants a team with noise-meters at the Cow Key Bridge to turn the offenders back. I say let's put it in Largo and head 'em off at the pass.