If you really want to know how to mess with Texas, and the consequences, I suggest you see the Spongebob Squarepants episode titled “Texas”. Or see the transcript here…
My favorite part of the transcript…
SpongeBob: Look Patrick, I’m Texas! Duh, howdy, y’all! Howdy y’all!
Patrick: I’m Texas too! Get a dog little longie! Get a dog!
SpongeBob: Howdy y’all!
Patrick: Get a dog little longie! Get a dog!
Sandy: Y’all best cut it out!
SpongeBob: [while Patrick does armpit farts] The stars at night are dull and dim, whenever they have to be over dumb ol’ stupid Texas! [Sandy gets steaming mad. SpongeBob turns into the shape of Texas] Hey Patrick, what am I now?
Patrick: Uhh, stupid?
SpongeBob: No, I’m Texas!
Patrick: What’s the difference?! [SpongeBob and Patrick laugh]
Drive through a small town at the speed limit, which messes with the cops because you are cheating them out of ticket revenue. Then, when you get to the edge of town, just past the speed limit sign, speed up to 70 just fast enough that the guy who pulled out to pass you has to drop back into line: that is worse than coitus interruptus.
Dine on local cuisine at the Texas Roadhouse.
Be nice to the African-Americans.
Do these kinds of things and eventually you will have messed with everyone in Texas worth messing with.
I haven’t been in Texas to comment on most of these, but except on the really crowded Interstates, I’ve always found Texas drivers to be pretty courteous.
I have found the Interstates in Texas to be an unpleasant experience due to those idiotic frontage-road exits, so I stick to the two-lane roads as much as possible. Well, everywhere, really, but in Texas, the two-lane roads are all 70 outside of town: even Texans would rather not spend much time in Texas.
Maybe he’s referring to all the freeway exits that are labeled only with the generic phrase “Frontage Road,” with no other indication of where the exit takes you. I grew up in Texas, and for years I thought “Frontage Road” was a real street name.
Every freeway exit (and entrance) slides onto a parallel frontage road. I find it unpleasant. It is just not normal; I have been all over the country, Texas is the only state that does it that way everywhere. It is also seems like a major waste of real estate.
I find it’s convenient and improves the traffic flow. The frontage roads act as an intermediary between the high speed traffic on the freeway and the slower traffic entering and exiting to other roads.
The frontage roads also serve as existing parallel routes when the freeway is closed due to an accident or construction.
Yeah, I love the frontage roads, too. If you’re getting off/on for fuel, it’s more convenient. Right hand turn in, right hand turn out – no muss, no fuss. It also provides a detour around accidents that would otherwise block the freeway when there’s no exit off of it for miles, a common situation in Texas.
Sadly, they’re not really universal here. I-30 almost completely lacks them through DFW.
As to the OP:
In the end, we kept Perry in office for 15 years, then replaced him with Abbot. I don’t see what you can do to us that’s worse than what we’re doing to ourselves. Wail away.
Frontage roads are the wave of the future. The states which don’t have them are adding them whenever freeways are upgraded and space permits. As others have said, modern traffic engineering recognizes how much they improve traffic flow versus the more traditional freeway on-ramp / off-ramp systems.
Having said that, Texas road signage is generally pitiful.
I read somewhere (possibly in one of the Big Secrets books by William Poundstone) that after the phrase had acquired its “back off” meaning, it acquired a second meaning in the mid/late 1980’s when falling oil prices caused a downturn in the Texas economy: investment professionals (or at least, ‘Yankee’ ones) supposedly took the phrase to mean, “Don’t invest in Texas”.
