Overtourism is leading to more car crashes in Scotland. T-plates might be the answer
By Maureen O’Hare, CNN
(CNN) — In our travel roundup this week, a Scottish hotel owner has invented “tourist plates” to combat the rise in dangerous crashes on his nation’s roads. Plus, why Google Maps doesn’t work in one of Asia’s most developed countries – and how a government decision in October might change that.
Tourists and road safety
It was a white-knuckle drive through Tenerife that inspired Scottish man Robert Marshall to come up with Tourist Plate, an adhesive sticker travelers can put on their cars to alert other road users that they’re newbies to the area.
“I was completely stressed, I was driving on the opposite side of the road from what I’m used to,” he says. “I couldn’t read the signs, but everybody was tailgating me. I shouted at my partner, ‘I wish these people knew I was a tourist, because they would just stay away from my car.’”
In the Scottish Highlands, where Marshall owns a hotel, there has been a rise in the number of serious road traffic accidents involving tourists. There have been close to 50 deaths in the past decade on the A9, Scotland’s longest road, which has gained notoriety for its regular changes from single to multiple-lane highway.
Last year, the BBC reported local police were working with US Embassy officials to deliver safety advice to American visitors in particular. In May 2025, Transport Scotland reported that the number of crashes involving overseas drivers on the wrong side of the road had increased by 46% in a year.
“We are suffering from overtourism,” says Laùra Hänsler, a safety campaigner for the A9, who has been working with Marshall on promoting his T-plates. “The infrastructure is practically on its knees because we’re straining to cope with it.”
The plates have yet to be officially endorsed by any authorities. When contacted by CNN, Transport Scotland said national driving standards, including the requirements for displaying vehicle plates, were a matter for the Department of Transport. But “as we understand it — as long as it’s not offensive, you can put what you like on your car.”
The plates have been generating buzz online and have been a particular hit on TikTok. Marshall says he’s received orders for the £9.99 plates (around $13.50, of which 10% goes to road-safety charities) from as far afield as the United States, Pakistan and India.
In a Facebook video demonstrating other road users’ reactions to the T-plate, Hänsler says that she tested the plates by going on the A9 and keeping to a steady 50 miles per hour (on a 60 mph road).
“I let the vehicles gain on me, and you had that couple of seconds and then the comprehension, ‘Oh that’s different, that means something,’” she says.
The cars would then routinely pull back to give her space, for her safety and theirs.
“That’s what it’s for,” she says. “On the A9, you don’t get the chance to have the split-second of a mistake. And that can cost you your life.”
Getting around
So why do 70% of the world’s countries drive on the right-hand side of the road, but another 30% drive on the left?
In mainland Europe, the standardization of driving on the right began with the sweeping away of class distinctions in revolutionary France — the left had previously been the preserve of the carriage-riding wealthy.
In America, it goes back to pioneers and their wagons, and an adjustment that gave drivers more control over the vehicle.
But fast forward to 2025, and we’re still solving navigation problems. Google Maps, for example, is a ubiquitous tool used by tourists to get around new destinations, as well as their own cities.
However, the popular map application doesn’t fully work in South Korea, despite it being, by other measures, a tech-savvy and tourist-friendly country.
It’s down to a decades-long struggle over a set of map data owned by the South Korean government, and geopolitical tensions have expanded to bigger questions of “digital sovereignty” and market dominance. A government decision is due this October.
In parts of Europe, tourist information booths are becoming a thing of the past — Scotland has announced that all of its centers will shut by the end of 2025 — but in Asian countries including South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong, they’re enjoying a boom. South Korea had about 300 tourist information centers in 2015. Now, the number has more than doubled.
“Asian tourists generally value structured guidance and interpersonal explanations,” Xiang Li, a Hong Kong hospitality expert, told CNN. “In contrast, European tourists are more accustomed to self-guided experiences.”
‘To Nice’ or Tunis
Two American friends traveling across Europe went viral after one posted videos of the pair accidentally boarding a plane to Tunis, Tunisia, instead of “to Nice,” France. They say their month-long trip has been full of mishaps, but they’ve enjoyed every second.
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