Yes, it’s true. I live in So. Cal. and I DON’T drive freeways, although I am very good on surface roads.
I really don’t like driving at high speeds, find it easier to get out of slow traffic or jams on surface streets, and don’t have much reason to travel very far unless I’m with someone else, in which case they insist on driving because of my lack of desire to do freeways.
So…are there any of you out there who are in the same boat?
Not me, but my mother-in-law…
I don’t think she has ever been a terribly brave driver, but in recent years she has completely refused to drive on busy highways. When she comes to visit us (outside Boston) she takes a bus because she cannot bring herself to drive on 128. The last time I drove her into South Station she spent the entire trip marvelling that I wasn’t afraid to do so. Even as a passenger, though, I think she was uncomfortable. She prefers to take the commuter rail out to us if she can.
Highways don’t particularly bother me, but around here driving anywhere is an exercise in risk management. I figure the increased speed of the highway is mitigated by the improved visibility (i.e. you can better see,and react to, what the idiots around you are doing.)
I don’t. Well…I probably do, actually, except no one calls them that here. You mean a highway, right?
I’ve never heard anyone say “freeway” before, which lead to a funny mishearing in a song. In the song " Staring at the Sun" by The Offspring the opening lines are
“Maybe life is like a ride on a freeway
Dodging bullets while you’re trying to find your way
Everyone’s around, but no one does a damn thing
It brings me down, but I won’t let them”
I realized only after hearing it for a few months that they were not saying subway as I thought (which is what I associated the dodging bullets with) but freeway, only after I thought about earthqakes and decided that there probably aren’t many subways in CA 
People who are nervous about driving on freeways scare me. The only people I know who are tend to be over eighty years old, and don’t do too well on surface streets either.
Sheesh. If you’re scared & incapable, take a bus.
sigh.
My parents like to avoid parkways but will take them when they are going long distances - they were always like this taking surface streets for the same to slightly longer time then the parkways. Their reasoning is that they felt safer on the lower speed roads.
Me and my sister OTHO prefer parkways (she even likes expressways - but that’s another issue). I feel safer driving on the parkway and unsafe on surface streets (even more so in parking lots). I think the differing speeds and directions combined with intersections, pedestrians, drivways traffic lights pose greater danger then the higher speeds.
But that’s just my humble O
A friend of mine loathes the freeway. She’ll drive on them for long trips, sure, but if she can get away with sticking on surface streets, she does.
The freeway always felt much safer to me. No side streets, no pedestrians, no oncoming traffic, wider lanes. Except for more noise and road vibration, you can’t even really tell that you’re traveling more rapidly. I don’t know anyone with this problem, so I can’t comment on why you’d avoid an efficient, easy, and fast way to travel.
Not around here. Well some are wider but many are much narrower as they were built a long time ago.
My mother drove on a freeway (actually, the Baltimore Beltway) once in the forty+ years she’s lived here. She insisted a neighbor follow her the entire way. Mom will drive anywhere, miles out of her way, just to avoid Beltway driving.
My Mom’s that way. She’d go out of her way to avoid major highways and interstates. That is, anything above 50mph just scared her. Her problem was, she NEVER got comfortable “merging” with high speed traffic.
When I was 18, I decided to take a trip from Hampton VA to Harlan KY to visit my paternal grandmother, and I invited Mom along for the trip. She INSISTED that I drive on Route 58, (across the bottom of Virginia) rather than take the “I64 to I81” route that I knew well.
Her justification was “It’s just like the interstate. Four lanes and a median in the middle.”
Well, what did I know? So I drove her preferred way.
Unfortunately, she failed to tell me that Rt58 also has TRAFFIC LIGHTS.
Needless to say, we went HOME via the interstate highway system!
Yeah, I think it’s the merging thing that gets me the most. Actually, I have taken turns with another driver when going to and from Las Vegas, on the I-15. But I don’t consider it the same as a freeway. Only four lanes, and you don’t need to merge, although you can certainly pass; and with that configuration, I don’t mind the high speeds so much, somehow.
I used to be terrified to drive on interstate traffic, and then one day I was forced to. It was either that, or drive like 75 mils out of the way. Ever since, I take the highway to go anywhere and everywhere. My mom still panics at the thought of me driving Boston rush hour, but I do it better than her! 
And for those of you who emember the glory days of pre-interstate vacations, try this:
a family from Washington State took a 48 day, no interstate vacation in a rerstored 1953 mercury (I think it was) woody, pulling a restored 1950’s era trailer. the site is their family log of the trip.
This was with THREE kids and only an AM radio for entertainment. Heard the father on the radio the other day (being interviewed on KIRO radio), and he said that they did not once hear the kids utter the dreaded ‘are we there yet?’ phrase.
I’ve actually “converted” a couple of people into temporary surface-road drivers after hearing their tales of trauma about clogged freeways and not being able to get home within a reasonable amount of time. They’re happier now that they know the optional routes.
I hate everything about the highway: high speeds, big trucks, suddenly finding yourself in the exit lane and having to merge yet again. I can drive it for twenty miles or so, but by the end of it I’m in a cold sweat and shaking all over.
And yes, Carina42, as soon as I move out of the US permanently I’m handing over the driver’s license. Unfortunately, that’s just not practical where I live now.
I don’t drive freeways . . . .
because I don’t drive at all! Heh.
I’m not afraid to drive on freeways, but I take surface roads to work and back because the freeway traffic doesn’t make them so “free”, if you know what I mean! At non-rush hour times, the freeway is the only way to go in Houston.
I don’t mind driving freeways, but I always consider other options. During major clogs, driving surface streets can save a lot of time, even with stop lights, etc.
This weekend we went to the county fair. The freeway entrance to the fair is always backed up for miles, but we skated right up to the parking lot via a back route. No one else in the entire county seemed to have thought of it.