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It's Crowded Out There Again, Got A Holiday Travel Tip To Share?

To grandmother's house they go: A highway in San Diego last evening.
Gregory Bull
/
AP
To grandmother's house they go: A highway in San Diego last evening.

News nuggets like these are holiday classics:

-- "42.5 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more from home during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, a four percent increase from the 40.9 million people who traveled one year ago," the AAA says.

-- "Los Angeles' LAX, Chicago's O'Hare (ORD) and Orlando International (MCO) will be the nation's busiest airports this Thanksgiving," Orbitz Worldwide predicts.

-- Travelers are "at the mercy of the weather," says The Associated Press. "Heavy rains and scattered thunderstorms prompted flood warnings and closed some roads across swaths of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York early Wednesday. Snow mixed with sleet and freezing rain to make for treacherous driving and thousands of power outages across parts of New England and upstate New York."

-- "Forecasters say some of the worst weather in the country for mid-week will be on the coasts and could back up some of the busiest airports such as those in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Seattle," ABC News adds.

-- Some motorists were delayed for hours last night and early today on the Pennsylvania Turnpike near Pittsburgh when "a tar-like substance ... leaked from a tanker," the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.

-- "A car crash on the freeway just north of San Francisco International Airport is snarling traffic on one of the year's busiest travel days," says the AP. "Television footage shows a car flipped over on Highway 101 south near the airport exit as traffic slows to a crawl. Lanes have been blocked on both sides of the freeway.

Now, we know many folks have strategies for coping with Thanksgiving travel. For one thing, as The Baltimore Sun says, "Tuesday is the new Wednesday." As in: the Tuesday before Thanksgiving "is becoming the new Wednesday before Thanksgiving" as more travelers take to the roads, rails and skies a day earlier than in the past.

But there must be many other tips — get up early; stay over until Friday; don't travel? Please share in the comments thread.

Update at 1:15 p.m. ET. Tips Are Coming In.

Thanks to those who have contributed so far. At this moment, the "most recommended" comes from AI F (84 driver), who wrote:

"I have two tips that I believe contribute to improving highway traffic flow more than any others:

"1. If the road is moving, stay out of the left lane unless you are passing. Keep right except to pass.

"2. Use turn signals."

And G T (GT90025) followed with a related point:

"3. PLEASE avoid excessive lane changes during heavy traffic. The people two lanes to the right aren't going any faster."

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Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.