Does not matter where people reside, there are good and bad boat operators from all over and to assume the place you register your car has anything to do with how well you can operate a boat is ridiculous.
The problem is not "tourists", it's math. The reason it may seem like the "tourists" are causing all the bad interactions is that during the height of boating season, the chances of interacting with other boat operators (good or bad) increases exponentially due to the huge number of boaters on the lake. The reason it's exponential and not linear has to do with the fact that when you are forced to adjust course or speed for one collision course on a crowded day, you may end up causing another collision course for boats that were not initially involved, and then the required course/speed adjustments that those other boats make may trigger more collision courses for yet other boats, and so on. I don't just mean crossing situations when I say "collision course" either. It's more often than not catching up to someone on the same course but at a slower speed that causes a collision course on a lake like ours that has a ton of navigationally-necessary choke points.
On a weekday in May, odds are good you are seeing a few terrible operators, but they aren't close enough to be a problem so you would never know just how clueless they are.
It's really not that big a deal to occasionally have to adjust your speed or course when you are technically the stand-on boat. I usually just let something like that ruin a week or two, not my whole Summer. Boat ramp faux pas, however, are pure evil and should be capitol crimes.
