You Know You're A Roadgeek If...

[frankenroad]

I just read through all the answers here, and I had to smile at how many I could relate to.   Some highlights for me...

..when you are 6 years old and you draw a map of the US from memory and it's good enough that your Mom has it put on an ashtray (OK, it was the 60s).

..when at age 9, you take over as the navigator for family trips (although, apparently I was a late bloomer on that subject, based on others' responses).

..you drew fictional freeways during study hall.

..when you convince your Dad to take a longer way just so you can see how a new highway construction project is coming along.

..you read road atlases in bed as a kid when you were supposed to be sleeping

..you won a contest which was basically a treasure hunt through the Rand McNally atlas

..even in 2017, your friends still call you instead of using their GPS

..at age 14ish, you made a mobile of highway signs out of cardboard

..you love looking at Google Earth and other satellite images, primarily to see where roads are being built, and also to follow the routes of long-abandoned railways (I'm sort of a railfan, too).

And, the best -- my daughter, who is now 29, and has maps on her living room wall, tells me that some of her best memories of childhood are the two of us on the floor looking at maps.

[jwolfer]

I just read through all the answers here, and I had to smile at how many I could relate to.   Some highlights for me...

..when you are 6 years old and you draw a map of the US from memory and it's good enough that your Mom has it put on an ashtray (OK, it was the 60s).

..when at age 9, you take over as the navigator for family trips (although, apparently I was a late bloomer on that subject, based on others' responses).

..you drew fictional freeways during study hall.

..when you convince your Dad to take a longer way just so you can see how a new highway construction project is coming along.

..you read road atlases in bed as a kid when you were supposed to be sleeping

..you won a contest which was basically a treasure hunt through the Rand McNally atlas

..even in 2017, your friends still call you instead of using their GPS

..at age 14ish, you made a mobile of highway signs out of cardboard

..you love looking at Google Earth and other satellite images, primarily to see where roads are being built, and also to follow the routes of long-abandoned railways (I'm sort of a railfan, too).

And, the best -- my daughter, who is now 29, and has maps on her living room wall, tells me that some of her best memories of childhood are the two of us on the floor looking at maps.

Thats the best!  Seeing roadgeekery in your kids... My 6 year old knows her way around ... Asks to take "short-cuts" because she likes the road better

LGMS428

[hm insulators]

You're using a friend's restroom and while sitting on the "throne," you see a gently wavering line of little holes in the plaster and mentally connect them with a "road" as if the holes were towns on a road map.

[sparker]

When commute traffic clogs up the freeway you were going to take, you get off and follow the original signed surface route (if it's still there and usable) -- and you know all the decent fast-food Thai or Indian restaurants along that route.  (Particularly applicable to either San Jose-Oakland/Berkeley or San Jose-Concord).

[kphoger]

These last couple seem awfully specific and not at all joke-like.

[sparker]

These last couple seem awfully specific and not at all joke-like.

And?.......................................................................

[D-Dey65]

• You plan to get a dashcam with your Christmas money this year before you go off for college.

I considered using my Christmas money for a dashcam, but it has nothing to do with going to college.

When playing in the back yard as a child, you imagine the dirt paths to be highways that only exist in your head and border your state.

Didn't we have something like this before?

[adventurernumber1]

When playing in the back yard as a child, you imagine the dirt paths to be highways that only exist in your head and border your state.

Along the lines of this, when I was young I turned my yard, my driveway, my street, and basically my entire neighborhood into one big road system with my imagination. Where my driveway intersects my street was an interchange, and my driveway was a busy arterial with big box chains and such. The grass in my backyard was a divided highway, and looked more similar to such when freshly cut. My street was an interstate that went down a pretend mountain (I actually live on a slightly sloped hill). At the house right down from us, its driveway went on an old overpass over the "interstate." The house after that was another exit, and it had a frontage road after that. When a real street would intersect another real street in my neighborhood, that was in my imagination an interstate-to-interstate interchange (since all streets were "interstates" in this imaginary road system of mine). Sidewalks were typically two-lane roads, and driveways multi-lane arterials, as if each house was its own little town.


In addition to that, in the retail stores my family has always frequented, I also made up imaginary road systems. The most extensive one was in Kroger, the place we have always frequented the most. Ah, the grand, nostalgic Kroger highway system. Basically the whole store was a massive city and metropolitan area. Most of the suburbs were in the produce section. The two-way pathway for cars right in front of the entrance was the busiest interstate in the "metropolitan area." There was a collection of other "interstates" within the store as well, which were the widest and most-traveled aisles and such. Regular aisles made up a grid-like road system of downtown city streets, with shelves being tall buildings and skyscrapers and making up the skyline. In the meat and dairy section there was an arterial on an elevated viaduct, and it had the bumpiest concrete in the road system. I would always make very loud concrete-sounding screeching or "ka-thunk-ka-thunk-ka-thunk" sounds on that "road." I also had a less extensive but fairly large imaginary road system in the Kmart we frequented. Since we went there less, I have a less descriptive memory of that one.


I might say I definitely know I'm a roadgeek for doing all of that. 

[freebrickproductions]

^^^I once assigned the various streets in my neighborhood highway numbers, and sometimes I like to imagine the bike routes around the city of Huntsville as actual "highways".

[tckma]

^^^I once assigned the various streets in my neighborhood highway numbers, and sometimes I like to imagine the bike routes around the city of Huntsville as actual "highways".

I did this (though in my mind only) in my high school, and later, for sidewalks and bike paths at my undergrad college.

[jwolfer]

^^^I once assigned the various streets in my neighborhood highway numbers, and sometimes I like to imagine the bike routes around the city of Huntsville as actual "highways".

I still remember the numbering system i had for the sidewalks and streets in my neigborhood

LGMS428

[Max Rockatansky]

If you have a list of supposedly "haunted highways" book marked just for the occasion where the topic comes up in a burial ground road thread.

[kphoger]

sidewalks

Sidewalks don't need their own number:  they're frontage roads!  Now let's design them with braided ramps.

[yakra]

Sidewalks don't need their own number:  they're frontage roads!  Now let's design them with braided ramps.

Curb cuts = slip ramps?

[formulanone]

^^^I once assigned the various streets in my neighborhood highway numbers, and sometimes I like to imagine the bike routes around the city of Huntsville as actual "highways".

Makes sense: That's because there are far more signed bike routes than posted state, US, and Interstate routes than in all of the greater Huntsville area.

[Michael]

...you look for your friend's car on DOT cameras as they drive while on the phone with them.  I was doing this a few minutes ago.

[ColossalBlocks]

You know you're a roadgeek if:

- You have toll transponders in your car even if your state has no toll booths.

- You have a dashcam on the front and back of your window.

- You call shotgun seat all the time.

- You stay up for the entire trip even though it may take over a couple days.

- You have highway shield stickers on your back windows (or it may just be me).

- You have shields/signs hung on your wall.

- You collect license plates.

- You accidentally add to many dashes to your lists.

[freebrickproductions]

You know you're a roadgeek if:

- You have toll transponders in your car even if your state has no toll booths.

- You have a dashcam on the front and back of your window.

- You call shotgun seat all the time.

- You stay up for the entire trip even though it may take over a couple days.

- You have highway shield stickers on your back windows (or it may just be me).

- You have shields/signs hung on your wall.

- You collect license plates.

-

You don't finish your lists?

[ColossalBlocks]

A 6th grade substitute teacher decides to kill time by having the class "learn" through research; the assignment she gives to you is figure out how to get from Point A in your hometown to Point B in a city sixty miles away; you tell her you already know the answer; she calls what she thinks is your bluff, and you tell her how to get there, with all the appropriate route numbers and local street names.

We did this in class at one point. Teacher was trying to get us to figure out how to get from the town we were in (Carbondale, IL) to Joliet, IL. I gave all the appropriate directions. Teacher's jaw was sagging more than a burnt girder bridge.

[vtk]

- You have highway shield stickers on your back windows (or it may just be me).

I've seen enough M-22 decals to conclude this isn't necessarily a roadgeek thing

[sparker]

.....you regularly go to your local AAA office and procure several U.S. maps so you can draw endless iterations of your version of the ideal Interstate system -- and you do this at least once every couple of months!  Also, you keep your local Staples in business with your highlighter purchases alone!

And, for the record, your nickname is not Fritz!

[MNHighwayMan]

A 6th grade substitute teacher decides to kill time by having the class "learn" through research; the assignment she gives to you is figure out how to get from Point A in your hometown to Point B in a city sixty miles away; you tell her you already know the answer; she calls what she thinks is your bluff, and you tell her how to get there, with all the appropriate route numbers and local street names.

We did this in class at one point. Teacher was trying to get us to figure out how to get from the town we were in (Carbondale, IL) to Joliet, IL. I gave all the appropriate directions. Teacher's jaw was sagging more than a burnt girder bridge.

In my sixth grade geography class we were split up into groups and given a copy of the then-current Official Minnesota State Highway map (random side note: I actually got one of those maps a couple years later when the teacher replaced them with newer editions–it's in surprisingly great condition for having been manhandled by middle schoolers), and after a basic lesson on how to read the maps (yawn) the groups were pitted against each other to see who could most quickly determine the shortest/most logical routes between a few pairs of cities.

My group finished first by a large margin, although no one cared.

[inkyatari]

I've seen enough M-22 decals to conclude this isn't necessarily a roadgeek thing

What is up with the M-22 decals that I see everywhere?

[Max Rockatansky]

I've seen enough M-22 decals to conclude this isn't necessarily a roadgeek thing

What is up with the M-22 decals that I see everywhere?

A lot of people in Michigan and the midwest in general spend their summer vacations on the Leelanau Peninsula which M22 loops around.   The big attraction most people would know it for is the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the locals have made a little cottage industry off of M22 trinkets which include said decals.  My sister and brother-in-law actually have a cabin up there and did them one better since I bought them a real M22 highway sign last year for Christmas.

[inkyatari]

I've seen enough M-22 decals to conclude this isn't necessarily a roadgeek thing

What is up with the M-22 decals that I see everywhere?

A lot of people in Michigan and the midwest in general spend their summer vacations on the Leelanau Peninsula which M22 loops around.   The big attraction most people would know it for is the Sleeping Bear Dunes, the locals have made a little cottage industry off of M22 trinkets which include said decals.  My sister and brother-in-law actually have a cabin up there and did them one better since I bought them a real M22 highway sign last year for Christmas.

I should have known, having been to that beautiful area a few times.