Old WWII story. Some German POWs were interned in Texas. They escaped confinement and planned to flag down a U-boat on the E Coast. After walking for days, they got up their courage, asked a local what state they were in ... he replied ... "you're in Texas, pardner". They turned themselves in ;-)
I heard of some German pow's that escaped in the Texas hill country during WWII. They saw a sign for New Braunfels, and thinking that the German descendants would be sympathetic marched into town expecting to be treated like long lost cousins. They couldn't have been more wrong! These German Americans were super sensitive about their loyalties being questioned. After all, at the start of the war we had rounded up all the Japanese Americans and put them in interment camps. They were rounded up at gunpoint and turned over to the sheriff who got the Army to come get them.
@@randalmayeux8880 The Army was generally laid back about escape attempts, probably in part for that reason. (A few managed. One guy, if I recall finally turned himself in in the 1980s, but no one cared by then.) One group, according to the diary of one of them, escaped and at some point decided to split up in a small town and see what information they could gather, but since only one spoke English, they didn't find out much. When they got back to where they'd stashed their duffle bags, the cops were there. So they sat around until everyone showed up and went back to camp, where no one had missed them until the police called.
@@williamivey5296 Right, if a few German soldiers escaped from POW internment and hid among the general population (especially out West), it really didn't matter. America already has a ton of people with German heritage (about as many as live in Germany itself, give or take a few million), so as long as they couldn't quickly get back to Germany and re-enlist in the military while the war was still ongoing, their presence here was not a meaningful threat. If they'd come over as an organized regiment intending to do some kind of high-level sabotage, that *might* have been some kind of concern (although the logistics of such an endeavor would've been rather heavily stacked against them), but a ragtag assortment of escaped POWs with no equipment and no clear plans? We weren't THAT paranoid. Germans, even the most fervent Nazis, had sufficiently Western values that they weren't going to do suicide attacks against civilians or anything like that.
12:24 to answer Millie’s question, Yes, “texits” are in fact illegal. You will be cited/ticketed if you are caught using one by the police. Even if it is an emergency. Usually once one is seen by TXDOT, they will put up a barrier to block the “texit”.
I’ve made the drive from Austin to El Paso multiple times and trust me, 85 doesn’t feel all that fast after 8 hours of driving. You’ll wish you could go faster than that (and most people do). Craziest thing is that drive isn’t even half the length of Texas.
I’m glad you wrote “most people do.” I was thinking this during the video. Lots of Texans go higher then the posted speed limit. As long as you aren’t the fastest on the road and you’re flowing with traffic you normally don’t get a speeding ticket. Houston area Texan here. I will say though truckers need to slow down.
@@lilmouse1862 I agree in general about truckers. Their tires aren't usually rated for the higher speeds so it's easy for them to have a blowout and all the damage it can cause to cars and motorcycles. I believe it was last year, I was headed south on I-5 going through Olympia, Washington to Portland, then east to home in NE Oregon. I try to leave room between my pickup and the traffic ahead but as you know in a city it's hard to leave as much as you would like. We're all doing about 65-70, when out from under the truck ahead, and I don't think it was his, comes a complete truck innertube and it happened so fast, all I could do was run over it and hope it didn't damage anything, which it fortunately didn't. Had I been on my motorcycle, or even a smaller car, I would probably be dead. I don't know what happened after I ran over it, I couldn't see in the traffic.
@@robertthomas583 I’m so glad you’re okay. Yes I was coming back to Texas from Tennessee in April and I was blocked in by 18wheelers. It was scary especially with road work going on at high speeds. Also on some roads truckers are only supposed to be in one of the two lanes available. Like on a bridge in Louisiana they are only supposed to be in the right lane, but they go on both. Very annoying.
I am loving the 85 for rural driving. The drive from south of Houston (near NASA) to Amarillo is a pain in the tail, we usually make it in 12 hours, but with us hitting our late 60s, we do it in two days now, stopping somewhere around Abilene or Wichita Falls on the way back and forth.
I live in Forney and go to school in Dallas. It takes me an hour to get to and from school everyday. Even in my hometown of Garland it takes like 30 mins to drive the 20 miles to Dallas
When y’all were commenting on the houses that looked “so American” they are actually a little unique. You’ll notice they were on raised stilts (to allow for hurricane tidal surges) which means they were on the Texas coast. They also typically have siding and styles that are unique.
They also do that near some of the lakes. Zoning in some areas doesn't permit anything but garages/parking on the ground level due to possible lake level rises.
This was on San Luis Pass Rd (FM 3005) near Galveston, TX near Terramar beach. You can see the google streetview here: www.google.com/maps/@29.1407622,-95.0410076,3a,60y,56.79h,92.26t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sbZguIxhgSCiF-e3-DJzUDg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
Most houses in the UK are brick or stone because you guys razed your forests centuries ago. Settlers in the US had, and continue to have abundant forests to build with, and wood construction requires a bit less skill.
As someone that lived in Texas for about 50 years ( Dallas /Fort Worth area ) I can confirm most everything in the video is true. 2 things are wrong though 1 You can drive in a fire lane just don't park in one. 2 if you decide to take a "Texit" as the man that made the video called don't let the police catch you doing it they will write you a ticket
Texas Native here. Texas is 801 miles North to South. About a 12-14 hour drive. 773 miles East to West. About 11-13 hour drive. This State has 12 different ecosystems from desert to swamps. To say Texas is big, is an understatement.
As someone from Arkansas a neighboring state, I never realized how similar our streets are to Texas. Most of these are commonplace here. We have the fire lines for cars, I actually thought that was just normal. We also use freeway access roads and double turn lanes. And people here definitely do their own “Tex-it”😂 great video as always!
Texits are totally illegal. I've seen more than a few cops take off right after the Texiteer. People are bad to do that when there's a traffic jam, and I've seen the police have cars lined up on the service road giving out tickets to people who did that. After a rain, sometimes there would be large pickup trucks bogged up where they had attempted a Texit. It was still always tempting. On the Dallas speed, you always knew that when you hit the city limits you had to floor it or get ran over by other traffic. No joke.
Okie here, neighbor to Texas. My daddy is from Texas and I still have a lot of family down there, so I have done plenty of driving in the DFW/FT Worth and Houston/Katy area. Just FYI, the Texit is illegal, but like the speed limits, is more of a suggestion as everyone here drives large SUV’s. I can’t believe he left out the most Texas thing of all, if you are on an F&M or other country road and someone comes up behind you, drive on the shoulder and wave them around, and don’t forget to wave at oncoming traffic. (Manners) There are other states, such as Montana, where you will encounter the 85mph speed limit, and many other western states have 80mph on hiways and interstates.
My brother drive truck here in Texas. He says the index finger wave from the steering wheel means, How you doin. Two fingers means how's the wife and kids. Fours fingers means, How's your Mamma and family doin...🤣
The 59/69 thing isn't a mistake. That long highway used to be US 59 until Congress changed it to kiss the butt of an aging senator. Then it changed to US 69 Senator Lloyd Benson Highway. However, it's still Texas Highway 59 and you'll often here locals call it that even though the US number changed years ago.
Growing up in Flint Mi, we had I-69 going from Pt Huron in the east, all the way though down to Indianapolis. Grew up on that road. And we called it simply "sixty nine"
In Houston, it is just 59. Probably always will be called 59. Driving south of the metropolitan area, you see the occasional sign saying "Future Corridor I 69" that seem to have been up for more than 10 years but there's no other reference to 69.
Actually there are plenty of references but they mostly get ignored because you know where you're going by now and don't focus on them. There are roadside signs, I-69 is painted on the lanes letting you know which exit lane takes you where, etc. But they're mostly of use to visitors so we ignore them.@@cynthiagarza5720
I grew up in Amarillo, which is about 150,000 people up in the panhandle. I moved to the Houston area in 1990. BIG difference. Houston has about 7 million people in the greater Houston area. This includes little towns attached around the city, like the one I live in, Put it this way, the 3 loops around Houston are very necessary to get around town. And the city is huge, area wise. Where I live to where my daughter lives in NW Houston near Cyprus is over 50 miles ONE WAY and still in the city. If you're looking at a map, she lives west of Highway 6 about halfway between I-10 and Highway 290. My house is also about 15 miles to Galveston, I'm closer to there than to downtown Houston. Oh, and the houses on stilts tend to be where it floods a lot or has storm surges from hurricanes. Galveston and places around the Gulf of Mexico and the Houston Ship Channel and Clear Lake have those houses. Thankfully, even though we live 4 blocks from Clear Creek, our brick house is on a higher ground and doesn't flood. When we had Hurricane Harvey, there was 52 inches of rain in our neighborhood. There were rescues all over the place, I had an air boat in my front yard loading my neighbors a few doors down who did flood. I know of at least one house in this part of the town that is now jacked up at least 5 foot high, another is 10 feet high so they won't flood again if it ever happens. I-69 is what they changed it to from I-59. Locals still say 59. About the Katy Freeway (I-10 West in Houston), that sucker, even with the two express lanes and the rest, can be bumper to bumper for MILES during rush hour. A Texit will get you a ticket too, it's illegal. But, if you're in that big of a hurry and you have a vehicle that can handle it, do you. Of course, I've seen a lot of cars try the Texit and end up stuck or high-sided on the curbs. About FM roads, they may not be all rural. I live two blocks from FM528 in Friendswood (south of Houston). It's 4 lanes plus a turn lane (center). It has apartments, stores, and such all down it. 528 turns into NASA Parkway (NASA Rd 1) on the east side of I-45 and at Clear Creek (4 blocks west of me) it turns into Parkwood. On the other end of my street is FM-2351, which turns into Edgewood at Clear Creek going west. Again, it's the same side wide and has schools, apartments, stores, and such. Hardly rural, but when we first moved down here almost 30 years ago, those WERE pretty rural until you got to the Friendswood city limits. Distances in Texas? From my house to Amarillo is a 12 hour trip, 10 if you're driving fast. One way. It'll take you about 20 hours to drive from Texarkana to El Paso. My husband's family home just north of the Red River in southeast Oklahoma was a 7 hour drive from here. My house to San Antonio is about 5 hours, same for Austin and Dallas. So, we have a long road to go anywhere in this state. Elevations in the state go from sea level in Galveston to 3662 ft in Amarillo. ;So yes, Texas is a bit different than most places in the world. :)
Dallas and Houston traffic on freeways will leave you in the dust if you go the speed limit. We live in Amarillo, in the Panhandle, which is a smaller city, but we are on Interstate 40 which goes across the whole country in an east west direction, and Interstate 27, which only goes from Amarillo to Lubbock. The best part of traveling in Amarillo, however, is the five lane main streets, two lanes each way, and a center turn lane. These streets are about a mile apart, so they make getting around town very convenient. Our streets are laid out in a grid. Most of them are posted at 45-50 mph, even those that intersect residential areas! You really have to be on the lookout for school zones, because they are 20 mph, and you will get a ticket! Have to slow down from 45 to 20 quickly. We also have a loop to go all the way around, but some parts are still under construction. Sure beats living in Dallas or Houston!
North East texan here 😂😂 i-30 aint no joke!!! If you ain't cruising 90 you'll be honked at,flipped off,cussed at,or maybe even shot at or even better...truck drivers blocking you in...been there done that,sucks!!!❤
I live in the Texas Panhandle. We have the yellow flashing arrow. We still have the green arrow, the yellow is kinda like you can still go as long as its safe, but be cautious.
It's very true. I got my license and learned to drive in Texas but moved to Kansas recently for a job and it's definitely been an adjustment to get used to the slower speed limits and, at least in the Kansas City area(most of Kansas has a small town feel, even in many of the cities), the fact that the infrastructure is way more complicated and less driver-friendly than Texas's.
But what about the Texas sign!?! "Welcome to Texas" "Drive friendly the Texas way" or would u get ticketed up there for that lol can I sing Bowling for Soups song Ohio for you?I'm sure your losing that precious accent lol
@@kandi679 My roots and my family are still in Texas so I'm definitely not going to just leave it forever. As for the accent, never had much of one to begin with. My accent isn't particularly strong to begin with but, while it does have some Texan to it, it's mostly Tidewater since I grew up in Virginia.
One thing thst wasn’t added is the practice of slower traffic driving on the shoulder to keep from backing up others. You are expected to drive on the shoulder to allow faster vehicles to pass on two-way roads. We used to always wave thank you to the person who drove onto the shoulder. I haven’t been back home since 2020 and hope it’s still like that. Drive Friendly is a motto.
Hey this varies by county and there's really no way to know where/if this us enforced. I got pulled over on Mustang Island on the way up to Port A for driving all the way to the right. I live in Corpus and have been doing this for 27 years. Cop was CCPD and once he noticed I lived in Corpus he just said don't do this anymore. I don't know the exact reason I was pulled over but it was the middle of the week not in the Summer so who knows?
You don't want to always drive on the shoulder though. You just pull over on the shoulder to let others pass that are behind you. You have to be careful, because people walk on the shoulder and broken down cars park on the shoulders sometimes.
I'm from Houston and have to say the loop system is great and I drive on 99 (outer loop) and 610 (inner loop) weekly. I live near 99 and it is great for getting to other sides of the city and cuts down on travel times. 99 will be a 170 mile loop once the last couple of phases are complete and it takes about 3 hours or so to make the entire loop (without traffic).
The thing with driving off the road onto the frontage road is when you're stuck in traffic and your exit is up ahead instead of waiting for your exit you just make your own. Normally people are stopped or almost stopped when they decide to get off. It's not like they're driving full speed.
As a life long resident of the Dallas area I can say that 75 having a 70 mph speed limit is useless. I will be doing 70 pushing traffic out of my way. That's assuming it's moving at all. Traffic is beyond stupid levels.
I grew up in Houston & now live in a rural town in the hill country 2 hrs away that has no freeway. I have to say the way they have designed the roads makes it very convenient . Great video!
Oh, ,fun fact. The distance from Texarkana (farthest east) to El Paso (farthest west), is greater than the distance from El Paso to Los Angeles, California. (which crosses the states of New Mexico, Arizona, and California, since LA is on the coast).
I live in San Antonio. IH-10 speed limit is 65mph. If you actually drive 65mph, then expect to be the slowest driver on the freeway. Most people are driving well over 75, including the cops.
I think M25 or “The London Orbital” is a motorway that encircles the city of London. And to answer Millie’s question on why NYC doesn’t have one, the southern and Eastern parts of NYC are surrounded by ocean, to drive around the west and north areas of the city, you can bypass the city center on I-287, but to drive from Long Island to New Jersey for example, you have no current option but to drive right through Manhattan, the Bronx or Staten Island.
I’m from Indiana! Us & Michigan are the OG I-69, 69 terminated at 82nd Street and became IND 37, Fall Creek Parkway. Now, we’ve built I-69 from Kentucky to I-465 south side, and we’re suffering through the construction on 465 from 65 to 70.
One thing I remember from being in Fort Worth, there will be bumper to bumper traffic going 70mph. You have to be paying attention and ready for your exit.
Part of the highway naming confusion is it is not uncommon for a stretch of road to have 2 or even 3 names. For example, US-75 and US-69 merge in Dennison, TX, then split again in Atoka, OK. For that 50 mile stretch, the road is both US-75 and US-69
I was working in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and at the weekend I was told I was to do job sites in Houston, Beaunont, Corpus Christie and Austin and then back to Dallas. I had a friend in Galveston so I decided to drive there and then start the jobs in Beaumont. It took me 7 and a half hours driving at 80 miles and hour(or more) to get to Galveston. Texas is miles and miles of miles and miles!!!! Once I was back in Dallas I had to go to Tyler and then back to Dallas to be able to fly home for the next weekend and come back to do it all over again. Texas is fun! (I've also been in El Paso and Lubuck(in a sand storm). In the areas I've been one thing stands out. FLAT. It isn't really but that is the impression. I'm from the Pacific Northwest. Tons of trees and lots of Mountains.
Two decades ago when I was heavily traveling between San Antonio, Houston and Dallas areas I fantasized about a high speed transit rail going down the middle of the freeway one could use to travel between the three cities.
When you lived in the Pacific Northwest you were living on an area that slammed into the North American plate some 50 million years ago, that is why all those mountains exist. West Texas has the remains of volcanoes which are decent sized.
In California the speed limit on freeways is usually 65 mph, but the accepted usuall speed most people drive is over 80-85mph except the left most lane which is the "slow lane:.
When an eighteen wheeler uses a texit it will get stuck. The trucks are too long for the texits and will end up with their steer axles and their trailer axles on the ground while the drive axles are just hanging midair and hanging there. Tow truck required!
12:12 could be because the actual exit isn't convenient for people trying to get to a particular shop or location. could also be that particular location has regular traffic jams and that particular path is more convenient to take than sitting in traffic till the next exit comes up. I've seen both instances.
Utah has some intersections that have two left turn lanes. Utah has 80 mph speed limits on some areas of the interstate highways in rural areas, and in the metro areas the speed limit is 70 mph.
I live in Georgia but my wife and I love to vacation in Texas. We have visited every region of the state and usually keep to the FM state roads when possible. Speed limits on the interstate highways are only a suggestion to locals actual travel speeds often exceed 90mph. The better side of this is that Texas drivers in general seem skilled and courteous for the most part. One thing not mentioned in the video, on most rural roadways there are wide paved shoulders. If you approach a slower moving vehicle the driver will move to the shoulder so you can pass safely. Texas is like a whole other country and a beautiful place to visit, very friendly people, excellent food, abundant wildlife (especially deer which are a real hazard when driving at night) and stunning natural beauty.
As a born and raised Texan, and a Texas ranch owner, Thank you and welcome to Texas. We try our best to be as courteous as possible. Of course there are idiot drivers everywhere you go, but for the most part we are friendly.
In Atlanta, the dreaded Connector is not the place where you'd fine highway with the most lanes. It is dwarfed by I-75 as it passes outside the northwest portion of I-285. It has 16 through lanes, at least 4 parallel northbound lanes that handle a lot of merging and exiting, and 2 express lanes: 22 lanes, and no frontage roads. But just like The Connector, all of it (except the express lanes) is a parking lot for hours each weekday.
Those houses you were commenting about near the end of- those were up on stilts to deal with storm surges in hurricanes - so they were a coastal home somewhere
The other unique traffic feature in Texas is that you can’t run a red light without risking an accident because the traffic from the other direction gets a green light before you get the red light. If you run a red then you could T-Boned in the side of your car. Also the car that drove over the grass to get on the frontage road, we call that a Texas Off Ramp.
The interstate system of roads in the US is very uniform from one state to the next. Something a lot of Americans are not even aware of is the numbering system: 1) Main through roads have two digit numbers; 3 digit numbers represent local highways branching off the main ones in metropolitan areas; 2) Even numbered interstate highways go north and south; odd numbered ones go east and west; 3) every interstate has mile-markers along the road. The numbering is just local to the state; the numbers start from the south and the west; if you are entering a state from the north or the east, the first mile-marker tells you exactly how many miles it is to the other end of the state; 4) exits are numbered for the mile-marker they occur on plus a letter. Mile-marker 220 when coming from the south or the west may have two exits. The first exit number will be 220A and the second 220B. If coming from the north or east, the first one will be B and the second one A. I've lived in Texas for 8 years and Texas is no different from any other state. They may drive a little aggressively but I think other states might match them.
Those houses look like he was in Surfside, which is a little beach town south of Galveston along the Gulf Coast (Gulf of Mexico). Those are pretty distinctive as beach houses, not a typical house you'd find in a city.
Here in the Toledo Ohio Region we have as a loop highway, Interstate I-475 that would be considered a loop, it connects most of the suburbs that encompasses Toledo's metropolitan area. We also have the famous Interstate I-75 corridor runs right through the midddle of the glass city that connects "sending you through Detroit" Northern Michigan's upper peninsula at the Mackinac Bridge at the north and stretches all the way to the southern most part of Florida in Miami.
Highway 69 was Hwy 59 and still is 59 where it does not qualify as an interstate. One of those qualifications is that you have to have a one mile straight stretch every 5 miles (so a plane could land in an emergency - although law officials frown on them actually doing it). Parts of 59 go through towns which automatically disqualifies the road. So Hwy 69 veers from 59 and goes west.
Do one on Montana. We had no hwy speed limits until the oil embargo, the the federal govt imposed a nationwide national 55 max speed. Montana said screw you, so the feds threatened no federal hwy funds. So Montana again said screw you and implemented 55mph, but they rarely enforced it. At worst, you'd get a $5 ticket you'd pay on the spot regardless of speed and it wouldn't go on your record. I literally passed a highway patrol going 115mpg once and he didn't even blink. Sadly that ended when Porsche built a test facility here, running cars near 200mph. An unacceptable speed by anyone's measure. Now we're 85mph, but unless you're well over 100mph, they won't bother stopping you. Mind you this is daytime speed limits, nights were always monitored and enforced due to deer, moose, bears, etc.
Here in Atlanta, GA, the loop highway 🛣 is called the perimeter. As far as I understand, without checking, the US highway system designates this kind of highway as a 200 number.
They are also referred to as bypasses because they were supposed to relive the congestion of driving through cities. However, they always become just as busy because development moves out with them. They can be 200, 300 or 400 numbers. I've not seen one higher, so I'm not sure if they exist. If the interstate number is I-95, the bypass will be I-295, etc. So, the N. to S. or E. to W. main interstate route is two digits and the bypass is three digits.
It takes 12 hours of non-stop driving to go from the Louisiana border to New Mexico (near El Paso). 851 miles, 1370 kilometers. 85 Miles per hour is 137 kilometers per hour
I live in Houston (actually just outside, so I can do fireworks). You can't get lost in Houston, for long anyway. You can just hit a loop and turn towards the exit you should have taken. I45 (north and south) I59 (actually overlaps I69 mentioned in the video, southwest to northeast) I10 (east and west) and 290 (Houston to Austin and a bit beyond) The inner loop is Loop 610 (free!). The next is Beltway 8 (toll road most of the way). the next is the Grand Parkway 99 (toll road most of the way). The Grand Parkway is around 290 miles around.
I have no sense of direction. I've lived in Fort Worth my entire life and still get lost. Drove my late mother to M.D.Anderson for 7 years and I never got lost in Houston. Nobody could believe it.
I'm not sure why these aren't well known. In most cities they're called ring roads, but almost any city of size has a number of them. Moscow has at least three, for example. London has at least once. DC has two, IIRC. Calling them loops and marking them like that is unusual as in other parts of the US they tend to just be sub-sets of the Interstate or equivalent in other countries, but it's a pretty well established method of keeping traffic from being funneled into the city's streets until the vehicles are as close as they can be reasonably and keep everything else circulating around until they find themselves near where they're headed into the city streets.
@@TheBeesleys99 Yeah I literally just saw the community post I panicked first lol. I grew up partly in Oklahoma(Tornado Alley) so I have a phobia about tornadoes and strong winds. Glad everyone's ok.
Sooo so so glad yall are ok I know I remember watching your videos about tornados and yall saying you've never been thru one,check that off your list 😂 im in tornado alley in texas so i deal with it multiple times a year
@@kandi679 I lived in Lawton as a kid and have been through so many I spent years having panic attacks whenever it would get really windy where I live in Buffalo, NY now. Buff is right on lake Eries coast and the Niagara river so it's pretty freaking windy here lol. To this day I still get stressed and super anxious during thunder/wind storms.
85 mph used to be the norm, but during the fuel crisis of the 1980s and the skyrocketing traffic death tolls, most states lowered maximum speed limits to 75 mph ( federal aid funding may have been made contingent on it. Texas has never allowed federal morays to dictate to them.). A friend from Montana said that at one time you could go as fast as you wanted to after dark. If you got pulled over for speeding they gave you a $5 ticket and sent you on your way. We went to Texas to pick up a horse and the highway signs were so sparse that there was no way to get over into the exit lane in time to make the exit. With a horse trailer in tow, we had to Texas turn around three times. The fourth time we signaled and pulled into the required lane and just let everyone scramble out of the way. The most poorly signed state we have ever been in.
My sister lived in Dallas Texas for 35 years and moved couple years ago to East Tennessee, she hated living in Dallas-Fort Worth and loves her life in Maryville in the beautiful Smokey Mountains.
I went the other way around. I did my undergrad in Maryville, which is a great town. (It has grown a lot lately.) I did my grad work in Houston. After a postdoc in New England, I was kissing the ground in the Texarkana Welcome Station when I got back. I love For Worth. Dallas is --- uh -- Dallas....
Loop roads are my favorite. Bad accident take the loop, road construction take the loop. I mainly drive at night so it’s perfectly clear for me. Oh and the Texit not only is it a bad idea half of the individuals that bail off don’t look for traffic coming on the frontage road and sometimes get in an accident. Don’t do it in front of a cop or state trooper oh and after it rains.
When I moved to Texas it took me a bit to sort out the difference between, say I-35 and IH-35. I-35 is an interstate - 35 - and, of course, there are no addresses along it. IH-35 is the access road on either side and there are addresses for businesses on it. (With N or S so you can tell which side of the north/south interstate to look for them.) IH stands for Interregional Highway, and there are slmost as many miles of them as interstates in Texas.
I 59 and I 69 share part of their route. They use to run kind of parallel until they widen I 59. I 59 and I 69 split from one another in a city called Lufkin. The city of Tyler is 1.5 hours from Lufkin. Tyler is mentioned in the video for having a loop.
"The Texas Turnaround" is also used in NY State, but it is not called Texas Turnaround obviously. NY State also has the "frontage roads" as well but these roads are called service roads or spurs because they allow the driver to get off the highway and go seek the "services" of all the local businesses.
I69 is the revised Hwy59. I69 is an Interstate, while Hwy59 is a state Highway. It is just being converted to a federal Interstate in the last couple of years.
That is highway 59 which is a state highway but he mentioned Texas is building I-69. Much of that construction is upgrading 59 in the Houston area a state highway to Federal Standards and renaming it I-69 so in the Houston area and south of there 59 and 69 will essentially be the same road.
The "Texits" are quite often a leftover from previous construction, if the highway is being rebuilt to move the ramps around (as a lot of them are, especially near cities; in some places the original design had on- and off-ramps too close together and caused traffic problems as a result). Very much illegal to use those. Regarding I-69: most of the planned route in Texas is currently US-59, but it's being upgraded to Interstate standards and redesignated as I-69, because it's eventually intended to connect all the way to the existing I-69. The Interstates and US Highways are two separate highway systems (kind of like the motorways and A-roads in the UK) with different numbering schemes. The older Interstates often run parallel to existing US highways - I-94 and US-12 in Wisconsin is a good example of this - but when new Interstates are being built, it's often easier to take the existing US highway and upgrade it (at least, between cities). Depending on how much of the highway is upgraded rather than built parallel to the existing one, they often keep both numbers. The Indianapolis Beltway famously has a short section that has eight different numbers (I-465, five different US highways, and two Indiana state highways) - and will also be part of I-69 eventually.
The large cities have the loops, but also the interests and highways cutting through them. Makes travel through them way easier, when you can just hop from freeway to freeway until you are as close as you can get to your destination, then exit, with a short drive on the regular city streets.
I and my co driver husband drive 11 hour shifts each, even though our 80,000 gvw Truck climbs mountain grades slower than cars, we can be in Houston Texas from Seattle Washington in two days. We left Seattle area and crossed to New York in three days. Not bad for us old truckers huh.
Tyler has two loops: 323 and 49. 323 ("The Loop") is nothing more than a typical city street that encircled the city (now, it's in the middle of town), full of traffic lights and train crossings from back when the city was a cargo hub. The new Loop 49 was designed as a freeway, with overpasses at every crossing. It's far enough outside of town that it should be at least 10 years before it gets swallowed by population growth. It's roughly two miles outside Loop 323, and when they started building it, it was over a mile away from new construction. Now, its about half a mile from the new outdoor mall. I expect a third loop to be built in my lifetime, nearly five miles outside of 323, just to accommodate our future growth. (The growth here has been crazy - my grandparents boight a house on the eastern edge of Tyler in the early 1950s, and were briefly one of the easternmost buildings in the city, with an empty field. Today, the city limit is nearly four miles east of that house. Population has nearly quadrupled. Two loops have been built. The restaurant I work at, on Loop 323 a mile east of that house, is considered "old" now. That house is essentially in the "center" of town today.
Millie's the best
Absolutely adorable. 😍
Old WWII story. Some German POWs were interned in Texas. They escaped confinement and planned to flag down a U-boat on the E Coast. After walking for days, they got up their courage, asked a local what state they were in ... he replied ... "you're in Texas, pardner". They turned themselves in ;-)
Lol that's plausible with it being texas,and if it was during june-oct they probably thought it was hell
If they started from the POW camp at Hearne, they only had about 300 miles of Texas to the East of them 😊
And another 700 to the coast.
I heard of some German pow's that escaped in the Texas hill country during WWII. They saw a sign for New Braunfels, and thinking that the German descendants would be sympathetic marched into town expecting to be treated like long lost cousins. They couldn't have been more wrong! These German Americans were super sensitive about their loyalties being questioned. After all, at the start of the war we had rounded up all the Japanese Americans and put them in interment camps. They were rounded up at gunpoint and turned over to the sheriff who got the Army to come get them.
@@randalmayeux8880
The Army was generally laid back about escape attempts, probably in part for that reason. (A few managed. One guy, if I recall finally turned himself in in the 1980s, but no one cared by then.)
One group, according to the diary of one of them, escaped and at some point decided to split up in a small town and see what information they could gather, but since only one spoke English, they didn't find out much. When they got back to where they'd stashed their duffle bags, the cops were there. So they sat around until everyone showed up and went back to camp, where no one had missed them until the police called.
@@williamivey5296 Right, if a few German soldiers escaped from POW internment and hid among the general population (especially out West), it really didn't matter. America already has a ton of people with German heritage (about as many as live in Germany itself, give or take a few million), so as long as they couldn't quickly get back to Germany and re-enlist in the military while the war was still ongoing, their presence here was not a meaningful threat. If they'd come over as an organized regiment intending to do some kind of high-level sabotage, that *might* have been some kind of concern (although the logistics of such an endeavor would've been rather heavily stacked against them), but a ragtag assortment of escaped POWs with no equipment and no clear plans? We weren't THAT paranoid. Germans, even the most fervent Nazis, had sufficiently Western values that they weren't going to do suicide attacks against civilians or anything like that.
Texits usually are caused by drivers stuck in traffic jams who don't want to wait for their exit, so they make their own and others follow.
And they're almost ALWAYS created by our big trucks that have 4 wheel drive lol.
12:24 to answer Millie’s question, Yes, “texits” are in fact illegal. You will be cited/ticketed if you are caught using one by the police. Even if it is an emergency.
Usually once one is seen by TXDOT, they will put up a barrier to block the “texit”.
Specifically in the city of Houston, we call frontage roads "feeder roads" Because they "Feed" cars onto the freeway.
Also service roads. I use feeder and service a lot. I don’t usually say frontage.
I didn’t realize they were called different names other than feeder roads until I moved away from Houston. 😂
@@lilmouse1862, in San Antonio we call them Frontage roads.
DFW we call them feeder roads too!
I’ve made the drive from Austin to El Paso multiple times and trust me, 85 doesn’t feel all that fast after 8 hours of driving. You’ll wish you could go faster than that (and most people do). Craziest thing is that drive isn’t even half the length of Texas.
I’m glad you wrote “most people do.” I was thinking this during the video. Lots of Texans go higher then the posted speed limit. As long as you aren’t the fastest on the road and you’re flowing with traffic you normally don’t get a speeding ticket. Houston area Texan here. I will say though truckers need to slow down.
@@lilmouse1862 I agree in general about truckers. Their tires aren't usually rated for the higher speeds so it's easy for them to have a blowout and all the damage it can cause to cars and motorcycles. I believe it was last year, I was headed south on I-5 going through Olympia, Washington to Portland, then east to home in NE Oregon. I try to leave room between my pickup and the traffic ahead but as you know in a city it's hard to leave as much as you would like. We're all doing about 65-70, when out from under the truck ahead, and I don't think it was his, comes a complete truck innertube and it happened so fast, all I could do was run over it and hope it didn't damage anything, which it fortunately didn't. Had I been on my motorcycle, or even a smaller car, I would probably be dead. I don't know what happened after I ran over it, I couldn't see in the traffic.
@@robertthomas583 I’m so glad you’re okay. Yes I was coming back to Texas from Tennessee in April and I was blocked in by 18wheelers. It was scary especially with road work going on at high speeds. Also on some roads truckers are only supposed to be in one of the two lanes available. Like on a bridge in Louisiana they are only supposed to be in the right lane, but they go on both. Very annoying.
I am loving the 85 for rural driving. The drive from south of Houston (near NASA) to Amarillo is a pain in the tail, we usually make it in 12 hours, but with us hitting our late 60s, we do it in two days now, stopping somewhere around Abilene or Wichita Falls on the way back and forth.
I live in Forney and go to school in Dallas. It takes me an hour to get to and from school everyday. Even in my hometown of Garland it takes like 30 mins to drive the 20 miles to Dallas
When y’all were commenting on the houses that looked “so American” they are actually a little unique. You’ll notice they were on raised stilts (to allow for hurricane tidal surges) which means they were on the Texas coast. They also typically have siding and styles that are unique.
They also do that near some of the lakes. Zoning in some areas doesn't permit anything but garages/parking on the ground level due to possible lake level rises.
I was going to comment the same thing.These raised houses are typically found near ares prone to flooding. Such as the coast line or lakes and rivers.
This was on San Luis Pass Rd (FM 3005) near Galveston, TX near Terramar beach. You can see the google streetview here: www.google.com/maps/@29.1407622,-95.0410076,3a,60y,56.79h,92.26t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sbZguIxhgSCiF-e3-DJzUDg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
Most houses in the UK are brick or stone because you guys razed your forests centuries ago. Settlers in the US had, and continue to have abundant forests to build with, and wood construction requires a bit less skill.
As someone that lived in Texas for about 50 years ( Dallas /Fort Worth area ) I can confirm most everything in the video is true. 2 things are wrong though 1 You can drive in a fire lane just don't park in one. 2 if you decide to take a "Texit" as the man that made the video called don't let the police catch you doing it they will write you a ticket
Texas Native here. Texas is 801 miles North to South. About a 12-14 hour drive. 773 miles East to West. About 11-13 hour drive. This State has 12 different ecosystems from desert to swamps. To say Texas is big, is an understatement.
As someone from Arkansas a neighboring state, I never realized how similar our streets are to Texas. Most of these are commonplace here. We have the fire lines for cars, I actually thought that was just normal. We also use freeway access roads and double turn lanes. And people here definitely do their own “Tex-it”😂 great video as always!
I definitely see people do texit here in Texas but I’ve never knew it actually had a name. Lol
Texits are totally illegal. I've seen more than a few cops take off right after the Texiteer. People are bad to do that when there's a traffic jam, and I've seen the police have cars lined up on the service road giving out tickets to people who did that. After a rain, sometimes there would be large pickup trucks bogged up where they had attempted a Texit. It was still always tempting. On the Dallas speed, you always knew that when you hit the city limits you had to floor it or get ran over by other traffic. No joke.
Okie here, neighbor to Texas. My daddy is from Texas and I still have a lot of family down there, so I have done plenty of driving in the DFW/FT Worth and Houston/Katy area. Just FYI, the Texit is illegal, but like the speed limits, is more of a suggestion as everyone here drives large SUV’s. I can’t believe he left out the most Texas thing of all, if you are on an F&M or other country road and someone comes up behind you, drive on the shoulder and wave them around, and don’t forget to wave at oncoming traffic. (Manners) There are other states, such as Montana, where you will encounter the 85mph speed limit, and many other western states have 80mph on hiways and interstates.
My brother drive truck here in Texas. He says the index finger wave from the steering wheel means, How you doin. Two fingers means how's the wife and kids. Fours fingers means, How's your Mamma and family doin...🤣
The 59/69 thing isn't a mistake. That long highway used to be US 59 until Congress changed it to kiss the butt of an aging senator. Then it changed to US 69 Senator Lloyd Benson Highway. However, it's still Texas Highway 59 and you'll often here locals call it that even though the US number changed years ago.
I'm never calling it US 69
Growing up in Flint Mi, we had I-69 going from Pt Huron in the east, all the way though down to Indianapolis. Grew up on that road. And we called it simply "sixty nine"
@@ssjwes, I grew up in Beeville. 59 ran through the middle of town. It will always be 59.
In Houston, it is just 59. Probably always will be called 59. Driving south of the metropolitan area, you see the occasional sign saying "Future Corridor I 69" that seem to have been up for more than 10 years but there's no other reference to 69.
Actually there are plenty of references but they mostly get ignored because you know where you're going by now and don't focus on them. There are roadside signs, I-69 is painted on the lanes letting you know which exit lane takes you where, etc. But they're mostly of use to visitors so we ignore them.@@cynthiagarza5720
I grew up in Amarillo, which is about 150,000 people up in the panhandle. I moved to the Houston area in 1990. BIG difference. Houston has about 7 million people in the greater Houston area. This includes little towns attached around the city, like the one I live in,
Put it this way, the 3 loops around Houston are very necessary to get around town. And the city is huge, area wise. Where I live to where my daughter lives in NW Houston near Cyprus is over 50 miles ONE WAY and still in the city. If you're looking at a map, she lives west of Highway 6 about halfway between I-10 and Highway 290. My house is also about 15 miles to Galveston, I'm closer to there than to downtown Houston.
Oh, and the houses on stilts tend to be where it floods a lot or has storm surges from hurricanes. Galveston and places around the Gulf of Mexico and the Houston Ship Channel and Clear Lake have those houses. Thankfully, even though we live 4 blocks from Clear Creek, our brick house is on a higher ground and doesn't flood. When we had Hurricane Harvey, there was 52 inches of rain in our neighborhood. There were rescues all over the place, I had an air boat in my front yard loading my neighbors a few doors down who did flood. I know of at least one house in this part of the town that is now jacked up at least 5 foot high, another is 10 feet high so they won't flood again if it ever happens.
I-69 is what they changed it to from I-59. Locals still say 59. About the Katy Freeway (I-10 West in Houston), that sucker, even with the two express lanes and the rest, can be bumper to bumper for MILES during rush hour.
A Texit will get you a ticket too, it's illegal. But, if you're in that big of a hurry and you have a vehicle that can handle it, do you. Of course, I've seen a lot of cars try the Texit and end up stuck or high-sided on the curbs.
About FM roads, they may not be all rural. I live two blocks from FM528 in Friendswood (south of Houston). It's 4 lanes plus a turn lane (center). It has apartments, stores, and such all down it. 528 turns into NASA Parkway (NASA Rd 1) on the east side of I-45 and at Clear Creek (4 blocks west of me) it turns into Parkwood. On the other end of my street is FM-2351, which turns into Edgewood at Clear Creek going west. Again, it's the same side wide and has schools, apartments, stores, and such. Hardly rural, but when we first moved down here almost 30 years ago, those WERE pretty rural until you got to the Friendswood city limits.
Distances in Texas? From my house to Amarillo is a 12 hour trip, 10 if you're driving fast. One way. It'll take you about 20 hours to drive from Texarkana to El Paso. My husband's family home just north of the Red River in southeast Oklahoma was a 7 hour drive from here. My house to San Antonio is about 5 hours, same for Austin and Dallas. So, we have a long road to go anywhere in this state. Elevations in the state go from sea level in Galveston to 3662 ft in Amarillo.
;So yes, Texas is a bit different than most places in the world. :)
The I-69 is still on the map as US 59 because it hasn't been completed yet. That part of the Interstate will follow what is US Highway 59.
Dallas and Houston traffic on freeways will leave you in the dust if you go the speed limit. We live in Amarillo, in the Panhandle, which is a smaller city, but we are on Interstate 40 which goes across the whole country in an east west direction, and Interstate 27, which only goes from Amarillo to Lubbock. The best part of traveling in Amarillo, however, is the five lane main streets, two lanes each way, and a center turn lane. These streets are about a mile apart, so they make getting around town very convenient. Our streets are laid out in a grid. Most of them are posted at 45-50 mph, even those that intersect residential areas! You really have to be on the lookout for school zones, because they are 20 mph, and you will get a ticket! Have to slow down from 45 to 20 quickly. We also have a loop to go all the way around, but some parts are still under construction. Sure beats living in Dallas or Houston!
Amen, brother from a West Texas boy!
I've spent about half my life in the Corpus Christi area, and I really miss grid layouts.
I live in Pampa. My kids live in Amarillo and Bushland.
North East texan here 😂😂 i-30 aint no joke!!! If you ain't cruising 90 you'll be honked at,flipped off,cussed at,or maybe even shot at or even better...truck drivers blocking you in...been there done that,sucks!!!❤
@@kandi679Houston Texan here. I completely agree with your comment!
Montana has a number of highways with no speed limits at all.
I live in the Texas Panhandle. We have the yellow flashing arrow. We still have the green arrow, the yellow is kinda like you can still go as long as its safe, but be cautious.
The driving here is the best in Texas. Born and raised. I’ve drive in multiple other states and I like the roads here better
Highway 59 in Texas was upgraded to Interstate 69 a few years ago. They are showing 59, but it is now Interstate 69.
#Giggity
It's very true. I got my license and learned to drive in Texas but moved to Kansas recently for a job and it's definitely been an adjustment to get used to the slower speed limits and, at least in the Kansas City area(most of Kansas has a small town feel, even in many of the cities), the fact that the infrastructure is way more complicated and less driver-friendly than Texas's.
But what about the Texas sign!?! "Welcome to Texas" "Drive friendly the Texas way" or would u get ticketed up there for that lol can I sing Bowling for Soups song Ohio for you?I'm sure your losing that precious accent lol
@@kandi679 My roots and my family are still in Texas so I'm definitely not going to just leave it forever. As for the accent, never had much of one to begin with. My accent isn't particularly strong to begin with but, while it does have some Texan to it, it's mostly Tidewater since I grew up in Virginia.
One thing thst wasn’t added is the practice of slower traffic driving on the shoulder to keep from backing up others. You are expected to drive on the shoulder to allow faster vehicles to pass on two-way roads. We used to always wave thank you to the person who drove onto the shoulder. I haven’t been back home since 2020 and hope it’s still like that.
Drive Friendly is a motto.
Hey this varies by county and there's really no way to know where/if this us enforced.
I got pulled over on Mustang Island on the way up to Port A for driving all the way to the right.
I live in Corpus and have been doing this for 27 years.
Cop was CCPD and once he noticed I lived in Corpus he just said don't do this anymore.
I don't know the exact reason I was pulled over but it was the middle of the week not in the Summer so who knows?
I stopped after constantly getting flats
You don't want to always drive on the shoulder though. You just pull over on the shoulder to let others pass that are behind you. You have to be careful, because people walk on the shoulder and broken down cars park on the shoulders sometimes.
@15:05 That's near Freeport, Texas all of those houses are bascially beach houses, built on stilts for storm flooding from hurricanes.
I'm from Houston and have to say the loop system is great and I drive on 99 (outer loop) and 610 (inner loop) weekly. I live near 99 and it is great for getting to other sides of the city and cuts down on travel times. 99 will be a 170 mile loop once the last couple of phases are complete and it takes about 3 hours or so to make the entire loop (without traffic).
The thing with driving off the road onto the frontage road is when you're stuck in traffic and your exit is up ahead instead of waiting for your exit you just make your own. Normally people are stopped or almost stopped when they decide to get off. It's not like they're driving full speed.
We have "Texas turnarounds" in Alabama. There's one within walking distance of my house.
I live in texas. Texas in length is 801 mi (1,289 KM) and 773 mi (1299 KM) in width.
I-69 & its child routes in Texas aren't complete yet. The mainline I-69 will mostly follow US 59 in Texas.
As a life long resident of the Dallas area I can say that 75 having a 70 mph speed limit is useless. I will be doing 70 pushing traffic out of my way. That's assuming it's moving at all. Traffic is beyond stupid levels.
I grew up in Houston & now live in a rural town in the hill country 2 hrs away that has no freeway. I have to say the way they have designed the roads makes it very convenient . Great video!
I never found the roads in Texas convenient at all.
We also called them “feeder” roads.
Oh, ,fun fact.
The distance from Texarkana (farthest east) to El Paso (farthest west), is greater than the distance from El Paso to Los Angeles, California. (which crosses the states of New Mexico, Arizona, and California, since LA is on the coast).
Of course, what he failed to mention, regarding speed limits in Texas, is they're usually treated as guidelines of suggestions. Lol!
I live in San Antonio. IH-10 speed limit is 65mph. If you actually drive 65mph, then expect to be the slowest driver on the freeway. Most people are driving well over 75, including the cops.
Not so much suggestions as people interpret them as minimum speed. Stop and yield signs are apparently optional since they are often ignored.
I think M25 or “The London Orbital” is a motorway that encircles the city of London. And to answer Millie’s question on why NYC doesn’t have one, the southern and Eastern parts of NYC are surrounded by ocean, to drive around the west and north areas of the city, you can bypass the city center on I-287, but to drive from Long Island to New Jersey for example, you have no current option but to drive right through Manhattan, the Bronx or Staten Island.
Utah has roads where 2 lanes can make a left turn at the same time also.
The houses on stilts are because they are in a low-lying, coastal area that is prone to flooding from hurricanes.
I’m from Indiana! Us & Michigan are the OG I-69, 69 terminated at 82nd Street and became IND 37, Fall Creek Parkway. Now, we’ve built I-69 from Kentucky to I-465 south side, and we’re suffering through the construction on 465 from 65 to 70.
I’m so glad you are all okay from the storm. I finally Googled where the Jersey Isles are. I didn’t realize they are so close to France!
During World War 2 the Germans had occupied the island
One thing I remember from being in Fort Worth, there will be bumper to bumper traffic going 70mph. You have to be paying attention and ready for your exit.
Part of the highway naming confusion is it is not uncommon for a stretch of road to have 2 or even 3 names.
For example, US-75 and US-69 merge in Dennison, TX, then split again in Atoka, OK. For that 50 mile stretch, the road is both US-75 and US-69
I was working in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and at the weekend I was told I was to do job sites in Houston, Beaunont, Corpus Christie and Austin and then back to Dallas. I had a friend in Galveston so I decided to drive there and then start the jobs in Beaumont. It took me 7 and a half hours driving at 80 miles and hour(or more) to get to Galveston. Texas is miles and miles of miles and miles!!!! Once I was back in Dallas I had to go to Tyler and then back to Dallas to be able to fly home for the next weekend and come back to do it all over again. Texas is fun! (I've also been in El Paso and Lubuck(in a sand storm). In the areas I've been one thing stands out. FLAT. It isn't really but that is the impression. I'm from the Pacific Northwest. Tons of trees and lots of Mountains.
Two decades ago when I was heavily traveling between San Antonio, Houston and Dallas areas I fantasized about a high speed transit rail going down the middle of the freeway one could use to travel between the three cities.
When you lived in the Pacific Northwest you were living on an area that slammed into the North American plate some 50 million years ago, that is why all those mountains exist. West Texas has the remains of volcanoes which are decent sized.
There’s a few new Texas Turnarounds on I-4 in Florida, and a few here in Orlando.
In California the speed limit on freeways is usually 65 mph, but the accepted usuall speed most people drive is over 80-85mph except the left most lane which is the "slow lane:.
When an eighteen wheeler uses a texit it will get stuck. The trucks are too long for the texits and will end up with their steer axles and their trailer axles on the ground while the drive axles are just hanging midair and hanging there. Tow truck required!
We need the texits. I35 from DFW to San Anton can be shutdown for hours due to an accident. We use the texit to jump onto the access road.
12:12 could be because the actual exit isn't convenient for people trying to get to a particular shop or location. could also be that particular location has regular traffic jams and that particular path is more convenient to take than sitting in traffic till the next exit comes up. I've seen both instances.
Utah has some intersections that have two left turn lanes. Utah has 80 mph speed limits on some areas of the interstate highways in rural areas, and in the metro areas the speed limit is 70 mph.
I live in Georgia but my wife and I love to vacation in Texas. We have visited every region of the state and usually keep to the FM state roads when possible. Speed limits on the interstate highways are only a suggestion to locals actual travel speeds often exceed 90mph. The better side of this is that Texas drivers in general seem skilled and courteous for the most part. One thing not mentioned in the video, on most rural roadways there are wide paved shoulders. If you approach a slower moving vehicle the driver will move to the shoulder so you can pass safely. Texas is like a whole other country and a beautiful place to visit, very friendly people, excellent food, abundant wildlife (especially deer which are a real hazard when driving at night) and stunning natural beauty.
As a born and raised Texan, and a Texas ranch owner, Thank you and welcome to Texas. We try our best to be as courteous as possible. Of course there are idiot drivers everywhere you go, but for the most part we are friendly.
In Atlanta, the dreaded Connector is not the place where you'd fine highway with the most lanes. It is dwarfed by I-75 as it passes outside the northwest portion of I-285. It has 16 through lanes, at least 4 parallel northbound lanes that handle a lot of merging and exiting, and 2 express lanes: 22 lanes, and no frontage roads. But just like The Connector, all of it (except the express lanes) is a parking lot for hours each weekday.
Lots of states have double turn on yellow. Also when double turn has a green light to turn oncoming traffic has a red.
Those houses you were commenting about near the end of- those were up on stilts to deal with storm surges in hurricanes - so they were a coastal home somewhere
7:28 s literally part of my commute home from work. LOL Pretty light traffic when he went through.
The other unique traffic feature in Texas is that you can’t run a red light without risking an accident because the traffic from the other direction gets a green light before you get the red light. If you run a red then you could T-Boned in the side of your car. Also the car that drove over the grass to get on the frontage road, we call that a Texas Off Ramp.
The interstate system of roads in the US is very uniform from one state to the next. Something a lot of Americans are not even aware of is the numbering system: 1) Main through roads have two digit numbers; 3 digit numbers represent local highways branching off the main ones in metropolitan areas; 2) Even numbered interstate highways go north and south; odd numbered ones go east and west; 3) every interstate has mile-markers along the road. The numbering is just local to the state; the numbers start from the south and the west; if you are entering a state from the north or the east, the first mile-marker tells you exactly how many miles it is to the other end of the state; 4) exits are numbered for the mile-marker they occur on plus a letter. Mile-marker 220 when coming from the south or the west may have two exits. The first exit number will be 220A and the second 220B. If coming from the north or east, the first one will be B and the second one A. I've lived in Texas for 8 years and Texas is no different from any other state. They may drive a little aggressively but I think other states might match them.
My cousin in Houston always did Texits! Felt like NASCAR on the 610
Those houses look like he was in Surfside, which is a little beach town south of Galveston along the Gulf Coast (Gulf of Mexico). Those are pretty distinctive as beach houses, not a typical house you'd find in a city.
Texit, hahahahaha. in CA a STOP sign means Slightly Tap On Pedal. hehehehehehe.
Out in far West Texas, the posted speed limit is "Reasonable and Proper". IOW, what your car can do!
God bless you.
15:00 The houses on stilts are on the coast. You know, because of flooding and such. They're uncommon in the rest of the state.
Mileage Mike is a good follow, nice to see him here! Best wishes for the baby and your area in dealing with the storm.
Here in the Toledo Ohio Region we have as a loop highway,
Interstate I-475 that would be considered a loop, it connects most of the suburbs that encompasses Toledo's metropolitan area. We also have the famous Interstate I-75 corridor runs right through the midddle of the glass city that connects "sending you through Detroit" Northern Michigan's upper peninsula at the Mackinac Bridge at the north and stretches all the way to the southern most part of Florida in Miami.
Highway 69 was Hwy 59 and still is 59 where it does not qualify as an interstate. One of those qualifications is that you have to have a one mile straight stretch every 5 miles (so a plane could land in an emergency - although law officials frown on them actually doing it). Parts of 59 go through towns which automatically disqualifies the road. So Hwy 69 veers from 59 and goes west.
Those houses are on the coast, called beach houses or bay houses that are raised up.
Do one on Montana.
We had no hwy speed limits until the oil embargo, the the federal govt imposed a nationwide national 55 max speed.
Montana said screw you, so the feds threatened no federal hwy funds.
So Montana again said screw you and implemented 55mph, but they rarely enforced it.
At worst, you'd get a $5 ticket you'd pay on the spot regardless of speed and it wouldn't go on your record.
I literally passed a highway patrol going 115mpg once and he didn't even blink.
Sadly that ended when Porsche built a test facility here, running cars near 200mph. An unacceptable speed by anyone's measure.
Now we're 85mph, but unless you're well over 100mph, they won't bother stopping you.
Mind you this is daytime speed limits, nights were always monitored and enforced due to deer, moose, bears, etc.
I thought 55 was just for trucks though. Can't imagine I big rig going over 100 mph.
@runrafarunthebestintheworld Yes sir, 55 for semis and vehicles towing.
@runrafarunthebestintheworld Wait, are you referring to the old 55 limit from the 70s-90s?
No, that was everyone.
Here in Atlanta, GA, the loop highway 🛣 is called the perimeter. As far as I understand, without checking, the US highway system designates this kind of highway as a 200 number.
They are also referred to as bypasses because they were supposed to relive the congestion of driving through cities. However, they always become just as busy because development moves out with them. They can be 200, 300 or 400 numbers. I've not seen one higher, so I'm not sure if they exist. If the interstate number is I-95, the bypass will be I-295, etc. So, the N. to S. or E. to W. main interstate route is two digits and the bypass is three digits.
Damn spell-check, relieve not relive.
Ha! the part of the video with the 2 lanes turning left leads right to where I work.
He is very correct regarding I-59 and I-69. In Houston, it is I-59 but becomes I-69 in the suburbs.
In AZ, we also have the double lane left turn on a flashing yellow light.
Colorado and Tennessee has a few Texas turnarounds. I can’t remember where they were but I remember using them.
Loops are a way to route hazardous material around instead of through a city.
The "Texit" as he calls it is illegal, but common on some highways. I wouldn't do it in my car, but big trucks can do it pretty easily.
You can never turn left in a red light, unless there is a sign saying so. You can turn right on a red light if the close is clear!
FM 3005 is the main road along Galveston Island. That is why mot of the homes are built on stilts, major hurricane & flooding area
It takes 12 hours of non-stop driving to go from the Louisiana border to New Mexico (near El Paso). 851 miles, 1370 kilometers. 85 Miles per hour is 137 kilometers per hour
I’ve been in Texas for 31 years and still haven’t done everything there is to do here. 4 months ain’t cutting it but gives you a little taste of Texas
I hope Someday that the Beesleys can visit the USA. And visit an either a stone like Lowe’s or visit a model home in a community.
Loops are build around small towns mainly to keep truck traffic out of downtown safety deal
I live in Houston (actually just outside, so I can do fireworks). You can't get lost in Houston, for long anyway. You can just hit a loop and turn towards the exit you should have taken. I45 (north and south) I59 (actually overlaps I69 mentioned in the video, southwest to northeast) I10 (east and west) and 290 (Houston to Austin and a bit beyond)
The inner loop is Loop 610 (free!). The next is Beltway 8 (toll road most of the way). the next is the Grand Parkway 99 (toll road most of the way). The Grand Parkway is around 290 miles around.
I have no sense of direction. I've lived in Fort Worth my entire life and still get lost. Drove my late mother to M.D.Anderson for 7 years and I never got lost in Houston. Nobody could believe it.
I'm not sure why these aren't well known. In most cities they're called ring roads, but almost any city of size has a number of them. Moscow has at least three, for example. London has at least once. DC has two, IIRC. Calling them loops and marking them like that is unusual as in other parts of the US they tend to just be sub-sets of the Interstate or equivalent in other countries, but it's a pretty well established method of keeping traffic from being funneled into the city's streets until the vehicles are as close as they can be reasonably and keep everything else circulating around until they find themselves near where they're headed into the city streets.
I'm really hoping this video droping means you guys and the babe are ok. I just saw a tornado hit Jersey
We are all ok. Only a little bit of damage to our building. Still water tight. Very lucky we were
@@TheBeesleys99 Yeah I literally just saw the community post I panicked first lol. I grew up partly in Oklahoma(Tornado Alley) so I have a phobia about tornadoes and strong winds. Glad everyone's ok.
Sooo so so glad yall are ok I know I remember watching your videos about tornados and yall saying you've never been thru one,check that off your list 😂 im in tornado alley in texas so i deal with it multiple times a year
@@kandi679 I lived in Lawton as a kid and have been through so many I spent years having panic attacks whenever it would get really windy where I live in Buffalo, NY now. Buff is right on lake Eries coast and the Niagara river so it's pretty freaking windy here lol. To this day I still get stressed and super anxious during thunder/wind storms.
The Texit...lol, that's why we all drive trucks down here!
85 mph used to be the norm, but during the fuel crisis of the 1980s and the skyrocketing traffic death tolls, most states lowered maximum speed limits to 75 mph ( federal aid funding may have been made contingent on it. Texas has never allowed federal morays to dictate to them.). A friend from Montana said that at one time you could go as fast as you wanted to after dark. If you got pulled over for speeding they gave you a $5 ticket and sent you on your way. We went to Texas to pick up a horse and the highway signs were so sparse that there was no way to get over into the exit lane in time to make the exit. With a horse trailer in tow, we had to Texas turn around three times. The fourth time we signaled and pulled into the required lane and just let everyone scramble out of the way. The most poorly signed state we have ever been in.
I learned to drive in Houston. And to this day I hate the spaghetti bowl. Google it. Lol
In Oklahoma City, we have a couple of Texas turnarounds on Memorial Road alongside the Kilpatrick Turnpike.
My sister lived in Dallas Texas for 35 years and moved couple years ago to East Tennessee, she hated living in Dallas-Fort Worth and loves her life in Maryville in the beautiful Smokey Mountains.
Living in Dallas isn't really the same as living in Fort Worth. They are 35 miles apart.
I went the other way around. I did my undergrad in Maryville, which is a great town. (It has grown a lot lately.) I did my grad work in Houston. After a postdoc in New England, I was kissing the ground in the Texarkana Welcome Station when I got back. I love For Worth. Dallas is --- uh -- Dallas....
Loop roads are my favorite. Bad accident take the loop, road construction take the loop. I mainly drive at night so it’s perfectly clear for me.
Oh and the Texit not only is it a bad idea half of the individuals that bail off don’t look for traffic coming on the frontage road and sometimes get in an accident. Don’t do it in front of a cop or state trooper oh and after it rains.
I have family in the DFW area. Sometimes - it's *worth* paying the toll and skipping the regular freeway lanes.
When I moved to Texas it took me a bit to sort out the difference between, say I-35 and IH-35. I-35 is an interstate - 35 - and, of course, there are no addresses along it. IH-35 is the access road on either side and there are addresses for businesses on it. (With N or S so you can tell which side of the north/south interstate to look for them.) IH stands for Interregional Highway, and there are slmost as many miles of them as interstates in Texas.
There are a lot of frontage roads in Quebec, way more than in (upstate) New York, where I live. They have turnarounds as well.
I 59 and I 69 share part of their route. They use to run kind of parallel until they widen I 59. I 59 and I 69 split from one another in a city called Lufkin. The city of Tyler is 1.5 hours from Lufkin. Tyler is mentioned in the video for having a loop.
"The Texas Turnaround" is also used in NY State, but it is not called Texas Turnaround obviously. NY State also has the "frontage roads" as well but these roads are called service roads or spurs because they allow the driver to get off the highway and go seek the "services" of all the local businesses.
I69 is the revised Hwy59. I69 is an Interstate, while Hwy59 is a state Highway. It is just being converted to a federal Interstate in the last couple of years.
That is highway 59 which is a state highway but he mentioned Texas is building I-69. Much of that construction is upgrading 59 in the Houston area a state highway to Federal Standards and renaming it I-69 so in the Houston area and south of there 59 and 69 will essentially be the same road.
The "Texits" are quite often a leftover from previous construction, if the highway is being rebuilt to move the ramps around (as a lot of them are, especially near cities; in some places the original design had on- and off-ramps too close together and caused traffic problems as a result). Very much illegal to use those.
Regarding I-69: most of the planned route in Texas is currently US-59, but it's being upgraded to Interstate standards and redesignated as I-69, because it's eventually intended to connect all the way to the existing I-69. The Interstates and US Highways are two separate highway systems (kind of like the motorways and A-roads in the UK) with different numbering schemes. The older Interstates often run parallel to existing US highways - I-94 and US-12 in Wisconsin is a good example of this - but when new Interstates are being built, it's often easier to take the existing US highway and upgrade it (at least, between cities). Depending on how much of the highway is upgraded rather than built parallel to the existing one, they often keep both numbers. The Indianapolis Beltway famously has a short section that has eight different numbers (I-465, five different US highways, and two Indiana state highways) - and will also be part of I-69 eventually.
Tyler, texas loop 323 is a busy road with lots of traffic lights, even though it loops around, i wouldnt classify it a loop.
The large cities have the loops, but also the interests and highways cutting through them. Makes travel through them way easier, when you can just hop from freeway to freeway until you are as close as you can get to your destination, then exit, with a short drive on the regular city streets.
15:30 those are beach houses. Good amount of the owners don't even live there. It's their second house.
Montana actually abolished speed limits in the “90s. Of course, the state is 400 miles long and nobody lives there.
The texit is used when traffic is backed up.
He didn't talk about the Hurricane Lanes coming from the coast on major freeways. I am not sure if other states have them, but we do here.
I travel the katy freeway here in houston daily, and i assure you 26 lanes and there is STILL bumper to bumper traffic.
I and my co driver husband drive 11 hour shifts each, even though our 80,000 gvw Truck climbs mountain grades slower than cars, we can be in Houston Texas from Seattle Washington in two days. We left Seattle area and crossed to New York in three days. Not bad for us old truckers huh.
Tyler has two loops: 323 and 49.
323 ("The Loop") is nothing more than a typical city street that encircled the city (now, it's in the middle of town), full of traffic lights and train crossings from back when the city was a cargo hub.
The new Loop 49 was designed as a freeway, with overpasses at every crossing. It's far enough outside of town that it should be at least 10 years before it gets swallowed by population growth. It's roughly two miles outside Loop 323, and when they started building it, it was over a mile away from new construction. Now, its about half a mile from the new outdoor mall.
I expect a third loop to be built in my lifetime, nearly five miles outside of 323, just to accommodate our future growth.
(The growth here has been crazy - my grandparents boight a house on the eastern edge of Tyler in the early 1950s, and were briefly one of the easternmost buildings in the city, with an empty field. Today, the city limit is nearly four miles east of that house. Population has nearly quadrupled. Two loops have been built. The restaurant I work at, on Loop 323 a mile east of that house, is considered "old" now. That house is essentially in the "center" of town today.