I'm an autistic adult that has a special interest in roads and freeways since I was a kid, which means that I'm a lifelong roadgeek. I don't drive. I wonder if other non-drivers have the same thing.
I haven't ever driven a car in my life either. I plan on changing that, though.
There are sort of two branches of roadgeeking—the "armchair" kind you can do from home, vs. actually getting to experience the roads yourself. The problem is that a lot of the joys of the latter are not things one can easily experience without having someone else who is into roads as a driver. (For example, in my home state of Nevada there are a lot of state routes that are spurs to tiny mining communities and the like—there is no plausible excuse for visiting one of those that might convince a normal person to humor you.)
While there is a lot of fun to be had in the armchair stuff, there are a lot of experiences where just seeing it on Google Maps really does not do it justice (the Virgin River Gorge, for instance, or NV-28).
Quote from: Evillangbuildsmc on August 06, 2025, 01:21:11 AMI'm an autistic adult that has a special interest in roads and freeways since I was a kid, which means that I'm a lifelong roadgeek. I don't drive. I wonder if other non-drivers have the same thing.
I've been interested in roads and signs since long before I ever started driving. I started collecting maps when I was in elementary school.
I don't drive either, but I'm able to take public transit places, plus I keep track of where I've walked (over 700 miles of unique roads).
Never hurts to have a serious deep look into the history of highway corridors. There is always something waiting to be unearthed even with name brand Sign Routes. A recent example from the Northwest board:
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=36384.0
I can't drive because of my cerebral palsy and I like the big green signs on the highways
I'm 52, and my overall health and particularly my reflexes have gotten so bad that I can't do it now.
The good news is that it stopped getting worse when I had my heart surgery. But it's probably too late to start a new career, since it's so hard to adjust at 52.
Now I only have to take one nap in the middle of the day instead of 5 or 6 like I did before. I was probably in the late stages of heart failure.