Drive Cross Country: Share Your Adventure

[turbo]

After I passed the sign that said "Welcome to Rhode Island", I looked in my rear view mirror to see the other side of the sign. It said "Welcome to Rhode Island".

If you take I-95 to Maine, you'll get that experience in NH, with about 10 actual miles in-state. Of course, they have toll-booths to make you pay well for those 10 miles.

Many states refund fuel taxes to truckers for fuel bought in-state but not consumed in-state. Not NH. They've got a cash-cow, and they're going to keep milking it.

 

[Moonbear]

If you take I-95 to Maine, you'll get that experience in NH, with about 10 actual miles in-state. Of course, they have toll-booths to make you pay well for those 10 miles.

Many states refund fuel taxes to truckers for fuel bought in-state but not consumed in-state. Not NH. They've got a cash-cow, and they're going to keep milking it.

Of course, they only hurt themselves, because truckers will know that if they can just make it another 10 miles, they can buy their fuel in another state and avoid buying it in NH entirely.

 

[xxChrisxx]

Indeed, once you have a general direction of where you need to get to as your endpoint, you don't need maps. I don't travel with maps most of the time. If I do get disoriented, the best plan is to find the nearest interstate highway to get back on track. If I need to find a road I missed somewhere, my general rule of thumb that always works is until I find it or an equally suitable alternative, don't cross any bodies of water, a state line, or an international border.

I'm not talking about getting from one major city to another, that is a piece of p, as you just use the motorway and get off at the right junction. It's navigating the A,B and green lane roads (country and back roads) that get you. For that you really really do need a map.

Though, if people are so critical of their navigators, why don't you let them do the driving and you read the map?

I do, I enjoy road rallying as a navigator, some on the fly route plotting in the pitch black gets the heart going. (although that's with my mate, not my missus.

 

[Moonbear]

I'm not talking about getting from one major city to another, that is a piece of p, as you just use the motorway and get off at the right junction. It's navigating the A,B and green lane roads (country and back roads) that get you. For that you really really do need a map.

Not at all. I find maps are usually quite useless for those backroads. Too few of the roads have signs on them to help you figure out where you are to orient yourself on a map, and then the map will be missing half the roads, so you can't figure it out just by counting intersections. It's even more fun in areas that have "paper roads"...the ones on the map that don't actually exist anywhere but on maps to mark places where a road COULD be put.

If all else fails, eventually, you will return to a sign for another interstate if you get hopelessly lost, and can start over again.

 

[Borek]

"Mommy, Mommy, see, soldiers have came! They stopped! They look at the map! And one goes here, they will ask for directions!"

 

[turbo]

Of course, they only hurt themselves, because truckers will know that if they can just make it another 10 miles, they can buy their fuel in another state and avoid buying it in NH entirely.

The problem with that theory is that only owner-operators are so motivated. When I was programming for a large trucking company, I wrote an application that tracked fuel-taxes vs miles in rebate and non-rebate states and found a lot of inefficiencies. It seems that truck stops in non-rebate states often lured drivers in with goodies to get them to buy their fuel there. The drivers would get a free sandwich and chips and a free Thermos fill-up for buying their fuel there, for instance, and get right back on the road with food and hot coffee.

After the program was in place and tuned up, the dispatchers could tell drivers when and where to fuel up to save the most tax money. For a company with a large fleet that did lots of runs from Fresno to the Northeast (including Montreal and Quebec City) hauling fresh produce in reefers, that represented some significant savings. It would mean that the drivers would have to stop more often to top off in rebate states so they could run right through non-rebate states, but the loss of a little time was insignificant compared to the savings in fuel taxes. The drivers were unhappy about the extra oversight, but the boss and her father (the owner) were thrilled.

 

[xxChrisxx]

Not at all. I find maps are usually quite useless for those backroads. Too few of the roads have signs on them to help you figure out where you are to orient yourself on a map, and then the map will be missing half the roads, so you can't figure it out just by counting intersections. It's even more fun in areas that have "paper roads"...the ones on the map that don't actually exist anywhere but on maps to mark places where a road COULD be put.

If all else fails, eventually, you will return to a sign for another interstate if you get hopelessly lost, and can start over again.

I'll trust my AA and OS maps ta. And if half the roads are missing the course of action i'd suggest is buy a better map.

The whole idea of maps is that you don't have to turn back and start again, you track your progress from start to finish. That would be a real crock of *ahem* to have to keep returning to control on a night rally because you can't tell where you are.

I think my love of maps over nothing/satnav is that if you know what you are doing, you will never go too far wrong. Even if you do miss a turn or something you can still quickly calcualte the fastest route to get back on track.

 

[DaveC426913]

Many states refund fuel taxes to truckers for fuel bought in-state but not consumed in-state. Not NH. They've got a cash-cow, and they're going to keep milking it.

NH. That's the state where sales tax is 0%, right?

 

[DaveC426913]

I think my love of maps over nothing/satnav is that if you know what you are doing, you will never go too far wrong. Even if you do miss a turn or something you can still quickly calcualte the fastest route to get back on track.

Near her town, my sister finds herself driving across open pasture according to her GPS system. Every thirty seconds it tells her turn around and return to the road. All her hollering at it that she's on the new four lane highway extension falls on deaf circuits.

 

[Huckleberry]

NH. That's the state where sales tax is 0%, right?

That's right. No income tax either. NH is where everyone from MA goes to get their booze and smokes and cars. But their property taxes and yearly car registration fees are pretty steep. Apparently, so are their road tolls. MA isn't any different in that regard.