British Roads Ain't Got Nothing on America 

That joke never gets old

@@RacingVagabond just like the hitchhiker...

Hitchhikers are rare enough that it is more likely the one picking up is the killer as they are more likely to pick you up than most pepole because they think any hitchhiker is a killer and wont stop. 😁 Also, don't forget the rule of the road for hitchhiking. 😋

@@RacingVagabond yes it does.

@@mircat28 I was only speaking for myself.

Kody and his dip-stained soul patch omg 🤣🤣🤣🤣

You get those in Texas, too? In Wisconsin, they’re less likely to have dip stains and more likely to be chubby from all the beer they drink while driving.

tara. Oh Honey, that was so damn funny(true), but funny. I had a really good laugh. I know exactly how you feel.

😆

@@JasnoGT HAd one of those on I-95 near Chester, Va this AM...White Chevy Silverado...I was running about 75, and he was still so close to me I could read the mail sitting on his dash..There was a water bill sitting on top of the stack. He owed 48.65. Plus a late charge...it was past due.

Im from wisconsin and iowa farms still. Get to me..the scale..corn has overtaken the state..planting growing the winds in the silk..its alive!...and its ready to march

Got to move nukes and troops across the USA quickly, Eisenhower was a smart man to learn from Germany and Japan.

@Tycondaroga100 I'm sorry, but who says Afghans are "other than white" other than maybe someone that doesn't think Italians or Greeks are white? You just spouted a whole lot of nonsense, and I wish you'd educate yourself about what people actually believe before you'd spout so much crap without knowing what you are talking about - to say nothing inserting random opinions into places that they really don't belong.

Amy Waldron Great story.

I live and Michigan and you can just drive by corn and soy beens for hours at a time

Or Los Angeles. Except it’s against the law to walk in LA.

General rule of thumb in NYC< don't drive anywhere!! hahaha. that's what I learned :) I drove in Manhattan once... yeah, that was enough for me. wasn't as bad as i'd seen many times previous but was still a rather stressful drive! Try leaving NYC on the weekends! it's a parking lot getting out of the city!!

@phillyslasher oh gosh! So true. I think NYC was my first experience where they had those lifts to Parma your car... so they could stack cars in the limited parking.

A few years ago went on a road trip to NYC, bracing myself for the traffic once we got into Manhattan You can imagine my surprise when it wasn't nearly as bad as my hometown Toronto You want bad traffic? Just take one look at the 401 running across the city

This is why new Yorkers are more fit, because we walk

Sort of what I came to post. The way I heard it was that Ike saw how well the Germans kept their troops moved and supplied with the Autobahns. He pushed for it in the US as a military necessity. This is why the interstates are all still federal roads where before each state controlled and maintained their own roads. But still the same idea and the same reasons.

I cannot, nor do I want to, imagine the US without interstates. I frequently use 1, 2, or all 3 interstates around my city* of about 120,000. *Actually it's a twin city but, I have lived most of my life in the larger city.

Forget to say I knew this about Ike. The majority of roads were dirt when Ike went to California. I've driven on some crap roads, but never intentionally on a dirt/mud road.

My post is about Eisenhower’s involvement in the creation of interstates, too.

And they have long straight sections for emergency landing of aircraft.

However say a 100 miles are fine but a 100 miles 2 with urban traffic is alot. So go to eg sweden or Norway they will use Scandinavian miles 1=10km and ppl will be like it's just 10 miles or 20 miles to go do groceries xD

100 miles is long? I know people that daily commute to work at that distance.

@@oscarmorales8979 It's more a cultural thing. Travel 100 miles in England, you'll often have a completely different accent and different landscape altogether.

In Seattle, 4 miles is a long distance. I'll have to plan that trip.

2600 miles to san diego...and i start in east wisconsintration camp # 9. 800 miles to denver...mountains dessert mountains more..

Ron Sparks - Oh YES! Absolutely gorgeous scenery! Then there's the possibility of driving up to Mount Mitchell which is the highest point in the eastern US.

Kalinysta Zvoruna yes. My father was born and raised in Marion, NC, which is fairly close to Mt. Mitchell, and had a number of brothers and sisters in the area. I spent a good portion of my youth in the area, and am currently feeling homesick for it. It is one of my first post COVID destinations.

@@ronsparks7887 Although I've never been up to Mt. Mitchell, I have been to Craggy Gardens and a few other spots between Asheville and Mt. Mitchell, but that was 20 years ago. I really, really, really need to get up there again. Every year I swear I'm going to Mt. Mitchell on the Summer Solstice and I never get there. Sigh. Maybe next year.

It’s famous enough that it got onto a US quarter!

Really... That's impressive and majestic to you.... I am guessing you have never been to Colorado and trail ridge road...

As well as a wrong-way concurrency.

on the way to Quincy? that is my favorite bit of road for just that reason.

@Herbert Norkus really? you're kidding, right? the 91x84 through Hartford has been under construction my entire life … and it still has left exits and grinds to a halt in rush hours.

In that stretch you are actually going east or west, of course.

Hmmm.... I bet somebody built a really nice house with all the money they "saved!"

Regular on that. Don't forget to mention it's near the Angel's Stadium and Honda Center.

No thanks!

I run it allot lol I'm a trucker shit I'm out in Palm Springs headed to riverside today deliver tomorrow then down to San Diego and then north to Washington before Thursday.

@@aaronlayes4485 Dude -- I'm sitting here in Desert Hot Springs and I don't envy you ANY of your driving between now and Thursday!

Don't even get me started on the fact that what the carpool lane options aren't the same as the normal options

A1: I have four segments of motorway! I-95: You mean controled-access freeway? I only have one of those. It's all of me.

You've got the A2(Watling Street that's been in use for nearly 2000 years 🙂

I think I-90 is the longest 2-digit Interstate route.

I'd wager most Brits would be blown away by the idea that an hour on the highway is a pretty typical commute. Or that, in our grandparents' time, some commutes were so long that some men would only be home for the weekend.

Do I have to?? Lol. I made it to the Pilot and backed in with 9 min to spare. Now have to do laundry shower and sleep. Yeah, gotta love it!

I drove 700 miles yesterday. That's further than the distance between Paris and Berlin.

Yep. I'm a truck driver myself

637 for me today

I swear it rains every time i drive through Atlanta, and rush hour is all the hours. I'm from Charlotte so..I mean I can do it but I am white knuckling it most of the way.

I've been under that overpass a few times and it is weird. Especially when a plane is landing on it right when you're going under. Wow! (Btw, I don't live in ATL but in B'ham metro and I promise they're trying to begin to copy ATL interstates.)

That interchange used to be called "Malfunction Junction."

Ah, the Grady Curve, downtown connector, the 285 "parking lot," Spaghetti Junction at 285 and 85 N, The Alpharetta Audubon (GA 440), and now the horrors of the limited access express lanes in Cobb county. Oh Atlanta roads, I do not miss thee one bit.

I live in small-town Georgia, thankfully, not Atlanta! But I’ve had to drive in/through it on multiple occasions and I HATE it! Atlanta needs a bypass around the bypass!

Deborah Danhauer Ain’t that the truth! My tone didn’t have a huge pothole fixed until it messed up three different cars axels and they complained. The pothole was unavoidable as it went across both lanes lol.

Dude try living in Indy

Fill it in yourself, and see how quickly the county comes in to fix your fix.

That makes sense, really. Once there are three cars in it you just pave it over. You don't need to bring a bunch of extra dirt and gravel. LOL

Ugh... I hate driving through Tennessee. The interchanges around Memphis and Nashville are both nightmares, and in between everyone is driving 80+ mph on mountain roads that were only engineered to be driven at 55 mph. You can pick between the right lane and getting stuck behind a truck struggling to make it up each hill at 40 mph, or get in the left lane and get rear-ended by someone trying to live out their NASCAR fantasy.

Oh, that is so needed in every city!

Are you referring to paining the route symbol on each lane? Florida has done that in many urban areas.

@@afh7689 Yes thats what they are talking about and when I drive thru Houston, even with a GPS, it can get challenging without those markers on the road. They really do help especially where !-10 and !-45 come together - there are TWO interchanges for that back to back. And then right after those is the I-10 / I-69 Interchange. You really gotta be paying attention thru this area or you'll end up going in a direction you hadn't intended.

@@mannfan12 I've lived in Houston my whole life, and that interchange still gets me every time I go past it! (Granted, I live in Katy, as mentioned by Lawrence, and don't travel into downtown too much) I find Houston's "Wagon Wheel" of freeways rather easy to navigate, if you disregard all the traffic and constant construction going on all of the freeways!

@@rmarca8306 Yes and what makes the I-10/I45 particularly nasty is that the I-10 THRU lanes traveling east right before I-45 go from 5 to 3 to 2 lanes VERY quickly. If you are not already in one of those 2 thru lanes before you get into the spaghetti bowl you have pretty much blown it. The I-10 thru lanes are NOT the dominate lanes thru the spaghetti bowl and thats why you have to really pay attention.

You could drive that distance in New York City and still have city left over.

I'm a US trucker and can drive nearly double that in a day

It's around 800 miles from LA to Tahoe and there's still 200 miles left in either direction.

Right? My brother and I both live in Michigan, 500 miles apart. And there is probably another 60 miles in each direction still in Michigan.

The furthest 2 points on mainland UK (Land's End to John o' Groats) are 874 miles apart on the most direct roads. I doubt there are many states in the U.S. with a further distance within them. Alaska, of course and maybe California and Texas.

It's true. We have 4 categories of state-maintained highways (interstates, US Highways, State Highways, and Farm/Ranch to Market roads), many of which are interstate quality and all have hardly any potholes. Beyond that, city streets are mostly well kept, and Texas is also home to dozens of traffic innovations (most of which come from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute) such as the orange construction cones and barriers, the current standard in pavement, and the spray grass that pavers use to green the sides of roads

For the most part, they're pretty good, but there are certainly exceptions. The smaller streets in industrial districts can be horrendous. I've had three or four blowouts from hitting horrendous potholes on Royal Lane near my job in Irving. The freeways seem pretty smooth though.

True enough about the potholes lol but even y’all can admit that are expressways and highways are pretty decent I live here in the south so to get anywhere we have to take the express to either Laredo or towards Austin

@Kristie C You basically confirmed Josh's statement with your own "hardly any potholes" doesn't mean "zero;" it means "not that many," which you yourself confirmed with East-West I--20. I live off I-35 just north of Dallas and I don't see any going up to Buc-ee's in Denton (about a 10 mile stretch -btw, that construction is complete) and the last time we went to Oklahoma there weren't any that I recall. Now, as for Dallas, I'll grant you that, because _it's Dallas._ You couldn't pay me to live in that city. I mean, not for less than a million bucks annually.

Canada(at least the western bit) has horrible road planing. The pavement is good and speed limits are not set unreasonably slow but the actual layout of interchanges and signage is atrocious. Not at all intuitive and the signs are three fonts too small and placed at or slightly after the intersection so you have no time to take the exit or change lanes. The only place in the western USA that rivals it is northwest Oregon.(also worst drivers west of the Mississippi. Hawaii excluded because small island.)

LOL, good point!!!

Thank you, Bobby Troup

I got a kick out of your comment.

Yup. I was born in Fort Worth and live and live about 30 min west of it. As soon as he said that, I thought "Oh he means mix masters"😁

I'm not in Texas and I got a couple mixmasters by my house.

@eitoobmiz I know the place, near the Stockyards, but I don't think I've eaten there, unless I did when I was a kid, and just don't remember. My parents both grew up in North Side. I used to visit family in that area a lot when I was young.

Ugh .... SW side of Dallas where every freeway runs together and stops

Plus they are runways....

@@jeffkopher3468 One out of every five miles is meant to be.

@@renshiwu305 Yep....

@@renshiwu305 that's a myth

Funnily enough, when I was in the army, we were not allowed to drive our vehicles on the highway during a training mission. We were instead required to use a dusty dirt road that ran parallel to the highway. But there may have been more to the story.

And late night drag strips

Urban myth, though the specification for clearance height under bridges and tunnels was set high enough to allow passage of ballistic missile transport trucks. First you have issues with overpass bridges anywhere the pavement may be wide enough, second most sections are not nearly wide enough(largely due to the wings hitting the barriers and lamp posts), and third the pavement is not strong enough for more than a couple of uses under transport aircraft. It is strong enough for occasional use by fighters but the smoothness standards are questionable. (modern fighters weigh as much as a typical loaded 53 foot tractor-trailer rig, but the speeds and thus impact energy for each bump is much higher and there are only 3 to 6 tires to distribute the load not 18) US freeway pavement is typically 12 inches of concrete in heavy use urban areas and asphalt in the open spaces, the lanes are 10 feet wide and shoulders are about 8 feet where not restricted by obstructions. Between cities where bridges are less common they are typically 2-3 lanes in each direction with a wide ditch between the directions,(essentially 2 roads) so 35-50 feet wide pavement. This would be considered a narrowish runway even for single engine propeller planes although this width can be found with many private runways and remote locations; county and municipal runways tend to be 60-100 feet wide and 3000-6000feet long; every airport with a tower that I have seen is at least 100x5000. The use of these smaller runways by small business jets is largely dependent on flight path obstructions, climb-out and decent slopes. Typical airline airport runways (not including the mile around the airport cleared of tall obstructions) are 150 or 200 feet wide, 9000-12000 feet long(two miles), and at least 2 feet thick concrete (4x stronger and 8 times more rigid than a freeway) with extra reinforcement and several feet of sub surface preparation. Secondary airports have runways 150 feet wide and 6000-8000feet long. Each runway also has rating codes for type of pavement, strength of subgrade, aircraft wheel configuration, gross weight, and tire airpressure. Spokane international for example is rated for dual wheel(2 tires per strut, 2 struts) aircraft up to 200,000pounds and tandem dual wheel(4 tires per strut, 2struts) up to 400,000 pounds, with a B subgrade, and tire pressures under 254psi on rwy 08-26 unlimited psi on rwy 03-21. [nose gear is not considered in the ratings]

MyTech, some highways could be used for an emergency landing, but signs and power lines would be a real danger.

Some of our highways are so long and straight that they actually add curves for no other reason than to prevent highway hypnosis.

Same with Route 12 from Washington state to Detroit.

You can still get your kicks on Route 66...

Route 66. The "Mother Road" A bucket list item to be done in a classic '50's car.

I’m old enough to remember Buzz and Todd driving from adventure to adventure on Route 66.

@@diannelavoie5385 been there, done that - great trip.

Wow. I drove 712 miles in a day once and that was exhausting.

Yeah. Driving across the country is a real experience. I really enjoyed it, and I was rushing across the country. But if you plan it out right and take maybe 7 or 10 days to do it, stopping at the most interesting places, you'd get a real feel for the country you'd not get otherwise. And you could do it twice, along a southern route, from say Charleston/Savannah to LA/San Diego and a northern route, from NYC or Boston to Portland/Seattle.

Several times as a young adult I drove from Sacramento, CA to Casper, WY on I80 (or the reverse) in a day, by myself. About 1,100 miles. It's one of those things that is possible, but ought to be avoided. And my brother and I did Nashville to Sacramento on I40 in two days, w/o an overnight stop; about 2,200 miles. Absolutely brutal. I'd love to take an epic road trip one of these years, Seattle to Bangor, or maybe PEI, then down to Jacksonville, and back across to LA or San Diego. But, it should be done at a meander ... maybe 3 or 4 months. :)

opps! *Nashville to Reno

@@plaitedlight oops, not opps.

Neat.

The Trans-Canada Highway runs almost 4900 miles from coast to coast

@@jimwoodman8158 I love how it sort of "ends" westbound at Horseshoe bay in the staging lanes at the ferry terminal to Nanaimo/Victoria Island. If you fail to get off at the last exit prior, you're basically committed to getting on the ferry.

@@timothybarney7257 I have been to Nanaimo twice lovely spot Duncan Aussie land .

Hell driving back east from Denver I always get way better gas mileage. Denver is like 5400ft elevation back to around 900ft at the Missouri river. Usually takes me close to 3 full tanks of fuel to get to denver and under 2 tanks to get back home

West bound on the floor for 20 miles. East bound use the gears to hold you back. Still doing 65 for 20 miles.

I've actually been where I-70 starts East in Maryland. It's literally a dead-end, and all 6-lanes of it appear out of nowhere at the edge of some woods. Damndest thing you ever saw.

@@sneakerbabeful it is just as weird in the west, it starts in the middle of no-where, there is not even a town by it. It is connected to 1-15 though.

yeah the Darrian Gap its called but some have gone thru that

The gap could be covered by a highway along Panama's east coast and ferry service to Colombia. I do understand why it's not, though. There's a fear that diseases endemic to South American livestock would make advances northward. How rational that fear is, I can't answer.

it's still pretty convenient for getting spare parts for your Corvair, though

@@DeKrampus there's also concerns regarding paramilitary groups in the area who keep taking hostages when people try to traverse the gap. It's not a great area to try and get through. I was reading up on the attempt by the Scottish back in the day to create a New World colony (which failed miserably) and thought "well, no wonder. It was in Darien."

I think most americans don't want to potentially get murdered in Mexico/Honduras/ El Salvador by car just to get to Argentina to be honest.

I know! its cute. I had to take my kids to see their Dad today, that's a trip from Dallas to Madisonville ( halfway to Houston). So in total, I drove just over 5 hrs (290 miles= 467 Km). I normally make this trip twice a month.

@@aneiasl, my siblings and I would routinely drive from the Houston area to Tyler to visit our grandfather. 3 1/2 hours in one direction for a total of 7 in one day, haha! The only irritating thing was that we had to leave Tyler by a specific time lest we hit I45 during rush hour.

@@nateman10 Don't you know all British are actually Time Lords? :)

Ten13Grl omg I live in Tyler 😌

@@nateman10 Ha. I remember going for a tour around one of the Mormon chapels in Utah City, they talked of "an ancient prophet"... from 110 years ago! Multiply by ten, to give you an idea what is considered ancient in the UK. I suspect you may know this already, that quote is more a reference to history in general. Bill Bryson remarked that you would find more houses from C16th in a rural North Yorkshire village, that you would find in the whole of the US. I'm not sure how hyperbolic he was being there, mind.

Taj Mahal sings a song about it. She Caught the Katy.

MO has the Katy Trail - katytrailmo.com/

But most of the Katy Freeway is in Houston. Guy Clark wrote "if I can just get off of this LA freeway without getting killed or caught." In later years, he sometimes substituted "Katy Freeway"....

You've never seen LA at rush hour.

I'm pretty sure we still have you beat. I don't think you really understand how large the U.S. is. Yes, our public transport system is lagging but it is because of the size. It's not economical to have bullet trains when (most) have vehicles and highways/freeways/turnpikes to get us anywhere we need to go in a timely manner....with the exception of rush hour traffic in major metropolitan cities. I vote we change the name to "standstill for hours traffic." Having said that, the 2nd largest car park (in the world) is at Seattle Airport which holds 13,000 cars. 9,000 spaces are reserved to the public while the remaining 4,000 spaces are reserved for car rentals. Lastly, to reiterate what someone else has already mentioned, you apparently haven't driven in LA during rush hour.

It Turns into a damn parking lot at rush hour without fail. I'm grateful I don't have to drive on it anymore these days.

i made this after dropping my folks at the philly airport a few years ago i.chzbgr.com/full/6357458688/hEDF71CF0/philadelphia

Sure-kill distressway.

True. Try driving east into Philly from Conshohocken on a bright sunny morning. Congested, narrow, AND blind!!

@@lhaviland8602 Oh yeah! That's why I never drove it when I lived there.

I expect to see this post reproduced in Letterbocks soon.

In Longview Washington they have a system of squirrel bridges over the roads for them to use as overpasses so they don't get run over as much. It works, and there is a Squirrel Fest every year to celebrate.

You might be disappointed with C roads though. They're not like aquariums.

BTFOOMNY , the last time we had to evac for a hurricane, it was more like 3 mph through the greater Jacksonville area. 😖

It's only the snowbirds fleeing anyhow..why shut down the rest of the roads for the residents?

Dekoth-OGN , I’m not a snowbird, I’ve lived in Florida since I was a toddler. I leave because I live close to the shore, where the storm surge will flood my house. When Frances and Jeanne hit, bits of my neighbor’s property came through our living room window (after the first storm removed the entire front screened-in porch). If you are a resident who chooses to stay, you should waive your “right” to have city/county/state funds pay to rescue your dumb ass when shit goes sideways.

GingerJeanie and those of us who live in areas impacted by hurricanes know shit will always go side ways😂😂

Florida abandoned this practice (known as contraflow) a few years ago. It required large resources to direct traffic at exits and impeded traffic that needed to drive the other way. Instead, the state now has plans to use the left shoulder of the highway as an additional travel lane. The first use of this plan was before Hurricane Irma hit in 2017. The left shoulder is swept by street sweepers and signage and electronic message boards say the left shoulder can be used for driving. It's only done outside dense urban areas where there's no left exits.

I've heard that it was the British response to: "Napoleon decrees wagons/carriages will keep to the right." (So, "Britain will keep to the Left," instead.)

Not the "wrong" side; the "proper" side.

@@machintelligence check the global map. This is your version of the imperial system or soccer (if those weren't British to start with)

Preaplanes “soccer” is somehow derived from “Association Football”, and not every nation calls it football or soccer, Italy, a place that loves the game calls it “Calcio”!

@@machintelligence Haha!! Yes of course..

Or in Denver Colorado, where the speed limit is 80, so people in a rush are doing 100+. I was doing 90 and people were still flying by.

@@Species-lj8wh Lots of places like that. DC comes mind--I have family in MD, right at the edge of DC, and the drivers are terrifying. Doing 75 just to keep up, and drivers are zipping by on the left like they were coming in the Indy 500. And they will cut you off in a heartbeat when they want to change lanes.

@@Species-lj8wh It's 80 now? Damn. I remember when it was 55 -> 65 -> 75. Denver also has The Mousetrap where I-25 & I-70 meet.

Or what a plumber would call, ''This year's vacation is covered, I'm going to Hawaii.''

@@Species-lj8wh: I live in Texas, the speed limit is how fast you'll be going when people start giving you ''the flying fickle finger of fate''.

And that distance is why it is so cost prohibitive to build any realistic nationwide high speed passenger rail system in the US. A point that most who ridicule the US on the state of our mass transit often fail to consider. Yes, you can take a high speed train across Europe, but that distance would barely get you started crossing the US.. The entire trans-European journey would barely get you out of the eastern part of the US.

I once heard a Canadian man sharing a story of how Europeans sometimes don't appreciate the scale of North America. He had a cousin from England who was coming to Canada for University, and the cousin's parents had called his parents to see if they could do the pick up at the airport. When the parent's in England reacted as if they were simply trying to avoid the inconvenience, the Canadian pointed out "YOU live closer to Montreal than I do!"

@@timothybarney7257 You should maybe check facts before you spout bs. Just the train from Paris to Moscow. Which isn't the longest train trip is 2100 miles which gets you from California to Tennessee. This is one direct trip. No changing required.

@@ruukinen But in making that trip, how many countries have you traveled through? Willing to bet it is more than a fraction of a single one.

@@timothybarney7257 Oh so your saying somehow having to juggle several governments instead of one federal one makes it somehow easier to get a rail network built that can take you basically anywhere in a continent. I see, I see. Compelling argument.

I’m from Jersey and we call them roundabouts.

@@NJLev I have heard both roundabout and traffic circle.

@@gpietsch True. I’ve never heard “pretzel” though lol.

I hate driving through Memphis. One has to exit, in effect, a few times to stay on the same freeway when going through that town instead of just driving straight through. The traffic engineer that came up with that ought to be shot.

The Mix Master is a different interchange, connecting I-35 and I-30, on the south side of Dallas proper. It is a confusing mess. The Hi-Five is north-east of Dallas, connecting LBJ Freeway/SH635 and I-75. Being newer and larger, with better signage, it is slightly less confusing.

K Kutani ok...it’s been YEARS since living there...my dad had lived there a few years when I moved in with him....and he would still get mixed up on that thing....lol...glad to see the “high five” has a bit more signage....lol

I actually learned to drive on the mixmaster at 75 and 635, before it was replaced with the Hi-5. Nothing like learning to drive stick on the mixmaster. As a nerd back in the day, the views over the TI campus were astonishing.

New York (the state) and Pennsylvania have some of the worst roads in the country. I've driven in WV too and been glad I wasn't in NY or PA.

@@rhiahlMT I bet Pennsylvania has more potholes in its road than all of Europe.

that's nothing! when I was a kid, my whole family _lived_ in pothole for 3 years

@@tbolt5883 The eastern half alone. I live in Montana and have two sisters living in Allentown. I refuse to go there. Lived there for a year and a half. Couldn't pack my bags fast enough to get out of there when I got a job offer.

@@jaewok5G Pottstown, Pennsylvania, right?

now that's something probably no european ever looks at, car insurance sums.... .hmmmm...but it is not weird for swiss woman to be thrifty! heh..i wouldn't have that thought in a million years....

@@ivok9846 Haha, yeah, she has that legendary Swiss rationality and frugality. So when I told her that our insurance only covers up to $500,000 in damage, and that the Lamborghini alone was worth more than that, she didn't want to drive in Beverly Hills anymore!

Absolute nightmare. I moved away from Dallas and would rather have a root canal than drive through Dallas.

I've worked second shift since living here and I get in one or two moderate traffic jams a year. It's not too bad for the fourth largest metropolis in the country.

I was on a business trip to Dallas and on the ... JFK, I think it was.. and they were talking on the radio about the jam and where it was. . I'm from NYC. I started laughing and laughing. I'd seen worse on the Cross Bronx at 3 AM than what they called a jam.

Yes I've been in 2am traffic jams on DFE highways

I thought the exchange was was called the Mix Master.

That’s true. The freeways are meant to get you from point A to B as quickly as possible. You would come across much more interesting stuff using smaller roads.

That's one of my family's road trip rules. No Interstates, no hotel chains, no restaurant chains, though in remote places we cheat at lunchtime.

It was once said that thanks to the highway systems you can drive from one end of the country to the other without seeing anything.

Roger Dickinson - Yeah. You can pass whole small towns in less than two seconds on an interstate.

hmmm.. i always thought the best way would be to travel across america on foot ;) Its being done more and more now

My one day record is exactly 1000 miles (1610 kilometers). 410 miles is a short day for me.

In Texas, you can drive for 8 hours and not still leave Texas

I have a couple of Polish friends who live here in the UK. They often drive to Poland to visit relatives/friends for their vacation. The nearest bit of Poland from here is about 855 miles away. To drive from Paris to Moscow is 1765 miles, Helsinki to Athens is 2111 miles and Copenhagen to Naples is 1300 miles.

​@mike a You're right about the empty countryside. In fact the only European territory that's less densely populated than any of the USA states, is Svaldbard & Jan Mayen... that's because there are very few people living there to begin with. Iceland is on par with the least population-dense USA states: Having visited Iceland, outside of Reykjavik, the country is largely inhabited. I know Icelanders certainly appreciate how empty their countryside is compared with elsewhere, so some Europeans do grasp this "emptiness". Jeremy Clarkson's comments sure prove that Europeans aren't of the same mindset-- his irreverence is very much typical of British humour. His remark about "American cars not cornering well", has been a running joke of his for years. He's driven across the USA enough times to know why American cars are built they way they are.

@mike a You're right about the distances. I suppose the difference is in Europe, you'd travel by train to cover larger distances, as this would be quicker than driving. As you rightly point out population density is generally less in the USA, hence lack of rail network over there. That said, a lot of northern Europe has population densities around the same figure as most sparsely populated states of USA. They get emptiness in northern Finland or Sweden, or western Russian (and certainly Iceland, as somebody else has pointed out.)

That interchange is going to be a horror show.

I'm in a city of 34,000 in Montana and we have a malfunction junction. What screwballs thought those were a good idea?

They also have one in Atlanta with the same exact name.

Nancy Kelly It’s also wicked. What’s fun is traveling from Birmingham through Atlanta so you can enjoy all the awful traffic of both cities in one afternoon!!

Joseph Cote - It seems to me that only So Cal puts a the in front of highway numbers. I’ve never heard that used anywhere else, certain not in the Midwest.

It's so jarring to hear that. I had someone ask me where the 95 was, and I had no idea at the time they were asking to get to I-95.

kbrock 9146 - Right there with you. It almost a defining characteristic to be able to tell someone is from Southern California. Although to be honest, I thought the whole state did I that until your comment.

And it gets them pretty confused. I've heard more than one Californian talk about US 1 in California.. about as close as US 1 gets to California is probably where it crosses I-40 in North Carolina. They are confusing California Route 1 with US 1. I expect a few of those folks are going to be even more confused in my area where we are about to have an I-42 (really US-70), and NC-42 running more or less parallel to each other.

Maybe it’s a Buffalo transplant thing? We call our interstate The Thruway or The 90, and local Route, the 33, etc.

Montana has two seasons. Winter and road construction. I have to admit though, we have really nice roads on the Interstates.

I drove through Indiana once -- and yeah, the condition of the highways was shockingly bad. Here on the East Coast we have Pennsylvania, which also has a rep for poorly maintained highways. And then there is I-81 through Virginia, which is well maintained but has so many massive trucks on it (most of it is two lanes in each direction) you feel lucky to be alive every time you exit off of it. And finally there is I-95, which is often confused with the rest stops along I-95 (both resemble huge parking lots).

I used to drive through Ohio & Indiana twice a year. Every time there was major road construction. Every.Time.

@@JRLB38 The worst I've seen is in northwestern Illinois. I think someone is running the road department without a brain.

@@johnalden5821 If you think Indiana is bad, try I-70 through Missouri.. Or as people often called it after driving on it.. Misery

phillyslasher, I’m sure they do!! 😂😂😂

That's the 10? Weird.

I drove the I-10 from California to Florida. I thought Texas would never end. :)

@@Anon54387 I -10 is 880 miles just in Texas.

I'm from San Antonio. Have driven I-10 thru Houston more times than I can count. So I was scratching my head when he said the Katy freeway was 26 lanes across. Then I realized he is counting the access roads as well. Ok technically they are part of "I-10" as they funnel traffic onto and off of the controlled access part (i.e. the "expressway" part - or as Lawrence might say, the "motorway") Oh and if we are counting the access roads then the Katy freeway is closer to 30 lanes across at it's widest point by my count.

@@Anon54387 Yeah that stretch between El Paso and San Antonio is the worst. 500 miles of NOTHNG.

El paso is actually closer to LA than it is to beaumont

I had a friend who roadtripped by herself from Oregon to Florida. Since she was by herself, she would only do 8-10 hours a day. I like annoying her by sending messages asking, "Still in Texas"? She was not amused, haha!

Currently living in the Dfw area - everyone knows the first big hurdle of going on a road trip is getting out of Texas. Which can take FOREVER. I mean damn El Paso has a different time zone and it’s in the same state !

Most ridiculous sign I've ever seen was coming back from visiting a friend who was doing his residency in Louisiana. I had just crossed the Louisiana/Texas border and sign showed El Paso - 890 miles. Why would you have a sign for El Paso when you've just crossed into Texas from Louisiana? That sign could lead to depression.

Drove it once, found three ships which had originally been lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

New Jersey had round-a-bouts (circles as NJ called them) up until the 1960s? 70s? and got rid of them because there were too many accidents. Of course, everyone in other states made fun of cars from NJ saying that "they're probably looking for a circle"!

I’ve resolved to learn to drive a standard before driving in Britain again because it seemed like the standards were smaller than the automatics at the car rental place, and the width of the vehicle was my greatest concern while driving.

Drove a stick in Namibia (a right-hand drive country like the UK). I did ok on the upshifts, but hit my right hand on the door reaching to downshift any time I had to slow/stop! Definitely would recommend traveling the Skeleton Coast if you get the chance. Ocean on one side, desert on the other.

@@kalinystazvoruna8702 Wife learned to drive in NJ, circles or roundabouts existed well into the 80's and probably the early 90's, and I know there still is at least one on at the intersection of Route 70 and Route 72. i hate driving there as I never know if I should be in the left lane for a normal left turn or if I should make a left via a jug handle so I should be in the right lane. Thankfully we usually go to the same places so I know most of the turns.

@@rdaltry777 I presently live in Washington County, TN, who had the idiotic idea of putting in one of those circles at an intersection known as... (wait for it) Five Points. They took out (horrors!) a beer/cigarette store in order to do it. Needless to say, with TN drivers having the attitude of "the law doesn't apply to me!" you basically take your life in your hands approaching that intersection. I usually can avoid it by taking back roads.

"have enjoyed all my Brit friends greatly." That *could* be taken as a compliment lol.