gapers' block

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

Traffic congestion caused by drivers slowing down to gawk at an incident

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Tắc nghẽn giao thông do tài xế giảm tốc để ngắm nhìn một sự kiện

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: drivers stopping to stare
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

The accident on the highway caused a gapers' block

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “gapers' block” mean?

Traffic congestion caused by drivers slowing down to gawk at an incident Literally: drivers stopping to stare

Is “gapers' block” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.