Some Advice For Dealing With Motorcades During The NATO Summit
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The arrival of dignitaries in Chicago for the NATO summit will mean added headaches for motorists, who can expect to start seeing motorcades ferrying heads of state from the airport to the NATO summit site and hotels.
As WBBM Newsradio's Steve Grzanich reports, one report says there could be upwards of 100 motorcades per day leading up to the weekend.
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"You will see 12 and 15 car motorcades and if you see the President and a couple of other heads of state, you're going to see 20 and 30 car motorcades," said Steve Scott of WCBS Newsradio in New York.
New Yorkers are used to the headaches.
"Every fall, we have 193 countries come to the United Nations General Assembly on the East Side of Manhattan," Scott said. "Most of those countries send their leaders and each of those leaders is treated as an equal just like they were the President of the United States, they get a motorcade."
Scott says the key to surviving is staying informed and planning ahead.
"If you can get away do it and if you can stay away do it. Just don't let it take you by surprise," he said.
According to Scott, some New Yorkers like to make a game of all the motorcades, playing guess the dignitary.
"You don't know if that might be the President of the United States, the prime minister of Great Britain or the leader of some Balkan nation that you've never heard of so you try to take a peak at it and see who might be going by. That's the only positive," Scott said.
Chicago authorities say traffic will be stopped for motorcades but that will be the exception rather than the rule, although it remains to be seen whether they're right.
