1. Drive the speed limit. Don't speed. Animals like to cross the road once in a while, as do horses with passengers, hikers, and the occasional ranger.
2. Drive the speed limit. Don't slowpoke. If you must slow poke, because the rental RV is unfamiliar or the baby's sleeping or you're just nervous about the road, USE PULLOUTS WHEN YOU NOTICE PEOPLE ON YOUR BUMPER. BECAUSE - YOU WILL DRIVE THEM CRAZAZZZZZY!







If there are five cars behind you - use one of the many pullouts! The person you save may just be YOU.
I was stuck behind someone in a small SUV doing this - I was behind him, the 19 cars behind me were honking, flashing lights, and PISSED. Mile after mile after mile after slow-f'ing-mile.... Rolling by one nice paved pullout after another. s.l.o.w.l.y. I have never been so on the verge of just whipping around someone on a double yellow line. (I whipped around him using the empty Glacier Point pullout - ssshhhhhh... but it was morning, no one was there, and I was so mad I even flipped the bird going by...)
3. When you are in the Valley, and you are staying the night - leave the car at your temporary residence and walk, bike, ride a shuttle or tram. Nature thanks you for not contributing to the fumes.
4. When you are in the valley for the day, to avoid nightmarish traffic jams... take it easy. For some reason the mornings are fine, but in the middle of the day the cars roll out of the woodwork - campers leaving, people showing up, people who don't feel they can walk from Curry to the Village - and the afternoon jams are EPIC. I sat in a line for an hour one afternoon around 4 trying to get past the Village. My strategy these days is to park in the Village day use area in the morning first thing and jump on a shuttle to wherever I'm going, and do the same coming back - cuts off that most congested piece of road between there and Curry. Things are slow past that point because of tourists crossing the road but at least it isn't a traffic jam.
5. Be careful on Tioga Road. Do the speed limit. Be aware at all times that even if you do that, you can still get into trouble - the only time I had a traffic incident in the park was coming around a corner after crossing Yosemite Creek. The car that had been zipping along in front of me had stopped in the road, a ranger in an SUV stopped in the other lane. She had misunderstood the ranger gesturing at her to mean "stop" - what he actually meant was "slow down, there is a bear down the hill from the road and I don't want you to hit him" - not sure why he thought he could manage to communicate that with a hand wave, but there you go. I came around the corner, accelerating slightly, and WHOOPS there she was! Having a small car, I zipped between the two vehicles and got through with just a bumper kiss. (The ranger did an incident report but no ticket. My insurance was wonderful about it.)
And then there was the Honda I drove past - it was in the ditch, neatly tipped on the passenger side. The family was across the road - humiliated looking man, screaming woman, and two teenagers about a dozen paces away looking anywhere but at their parents. Please don't speed and gawk.
6. Don't make up your own parking spaces. Keep a clean car. Follow food storage rules - put it all in the bear lockers. And don't take things that aren't yours out of the lockers when you leave!