the roads in austin are horrible (Dallas, San Antonio: rental car, rental, insurance)

[bianca0]

OMG! Austin has the worst roads the I have ever driven on. Does anyone else feel this way? Will I ever get use to it? I have lived in KY, OH, and So Cal (san diego) and the roads there are fine, I even think that traffic is worse in Austin than San Diego.

[TexasHorseLady]

I don't find them particularly horrible (except some of the newer ones that I'm not used to yet), but, then, I know my way around. Driving in Austin is certainly better than many other places I've driven (Boston and the D.C. area spring instantly to mind, with San Antonio right up there). What do you find so horrible about them?

[gigi927]

If you mean the difficulty of navigating, yes you'll get used to it. I still miss turns at what I like to call the Bermuda Triangle (183/Mopac/360 set of interchanges) to get certain places but going someplace new no longer gives me a heart attack

[southdown]

Pond Springs Road is dreadful, like something out of the 3rd world, but it has a certain charm!

[Mckellyb]

That's not a very specific statement, "the roads are horrible". If you mean the pavement...honestly, you need to go elsewhere and see what truly bad pavement is like. I recommend anywhere NE of Philadelphia.

If you mean signage is bad, then yeah, it's a challenge, and much like gigi927...the 35 & 183 intersection has hosed me a few times now, and I'm not only good at navigation, my wife and I have traveled, by wheel, 49 of the 49 contiguous states and 10 Canadian provinces. I consider myself to be not bad, having not gotten a 58' long motorhome/car combination totally screwed up while in San Francisco. Was close, but not difficult to avoid truly ugly situations.

183, MoPac, 35, 360 interchanges. I think what throws me is how much geography they cover, as you must exit a mile before where you know the 'intersection' is. Go figure, I'll get accustomed to it.

Having a nav system in my wife's car has saved me a few times. This said, my 20 year old car has had me going, "huh...um, what happened..." a few times. I can see a Mapsco in the near future, once we put down permanently in either Austin or SA. I'd rather stay here, but the job market in SA might reward me more quickly.

Oh, and for truly bad signage...try Portland, OR. Signs are posted, no lie, after you needed to make choice in many, many areas.

[twange]

The worst(and most unsafe) is that there are actually traffic lights on freeways like 183(east of 35), 360 and 71 Ben White. Now, I understand that these roads were previously smaller boulevard-types and were re-worked/extended as the need has grown but not engineering over-passes where roads/entranceways intersect is just second-rate. Driving along at 65 mph, cresting a hill and suddenly having to jam on your brakes because of a red-light...very poor. Every single person who has visited me here and has driven, comments on this.

[TexasHorseLady]

Really? I find that perfectly normal, but, then, there are only lights like that in relatively occupied areas and I tend to drive more carefully in those areas because, without the lights, you're likely to come over the crest of a hill and find someone pulling out in front of you. Guess it's all in what you're used to/used to dealing with.

[bianca0]

What I mean by horrible is the navagation. My poor garmin is very confused since so many side roads run parallel to the expressways. The quality of the roads are also bad. I can see why there are so many wrecks. I have seen more accidents here in 1 week than I did in 1 year in San Diego. I also think the the drivers are some of the worst I have seen. Maybe that has something to do with the road structure

[TexasHorseLady]

My garmin gets confused, but only because I override its decisions sometimes just because I know better. Or because I haven't updated it and they built a road and it thinks I'm careening through the middle of a pasture!

[Mckellyb]

Originally Posted by bianca0

What I mean by horrible is the navagation. My poor garmin is very confused since so many side roads run parallel to the expressways. The quality of the roads are also bad. I can see why there are so many wrecks. I have seen more accidents here in 1 week than I did in 1 year in San Diego. I also think the the drivers are some of the worst I have seen. Maybe that has something to do with the road structure

Oh. Yeah, Nav units tend to get discombobulated around here thanks to the 'new', large roads being immediately next to, or literally above, the old ones.

My wife's RX300's Nav system freaks out pretty routinely.

Oh, and there is plenty of tailgating here...but I'll tell yuh what, it's nowhere near as bad as the Dallas-area. I grew up there, drove a tour bus for a living in college in fact, so I thought it'd never freak me out, but those folks are downright nuts. One mis-timed sneeze could cause a California-esque 120 car pileup on LBJ.

If you have a large amount of the population being new to the area, hence unfamiliar with where they are, where they're going, what they're looking for, you're bound to have a certain randomness to driving which is more than a bit off-putting. Austin has had what I'd consider a large influx of 'newbies', just by looking at license plates. Hey, I'm one of 'em!! Two cars, both with South Dakota plates. We lived there for one day to get 'em. The insurance and registration rates cannot be touched in most places.

Traffic here in Austin is much more civilized than Denver, Portland, OR, or Vegas. Sheesh...Vegas. Take 70% of the driving population, make them from out-of-town, on a very contrained time budget, partially drunk, and in a rental car... Draw your own crash-em-up cartoon.

Add to this they've been handing out $20/minute for those 'free' drinks, and you now have a road-based disaster every hour, or so, 24 hours each and every day.