I grew up in rural Nebraska and now live in even more rural Utah. I’ve never been lost or broke down and not have had everyone be unfailingly polite and helpful. In point of fact, I’ve never heard of such a thing. Folks out in the boonies recognize that they are likely the only source of help and so, do whatever they can.
I spend a lot of time driving in rural areas. My fears involve my car breaking down, my having to walk half the night to get help, and getting attacked by dogs. I swear, it seems I cannot be alone on a gravel road after nightfall without having to contend with some psychotic canine . . . or two or three. In some areas I’ve been in, bears or something would probably be a more legitimate concern, but it’s always dogs that are my genuine concern. I’ve never really been bitten in these scenarios (well, not seriously . . . nips that may or may not have been meant to hurt), but I can tell you, being alone in the dark in the back of beyond with a bunch of snarling, barking, jumping, snapping dogs around you can be quite disconcerting. At least it is to me. Anyway, that’s what I fear in rural areas, and it’s based on unpleasant experience. Dogs.
I live in a rural area and my household usually handles 2 or 3 motorist assists every year.
We have never eaten, robbed, molested, or harvested the organs from any of them.
The shear amount of ignorance about conditions in rural environments here is stunning. People are seriously worried about wild dogs or bears attacking? The odds of this are far, far less than the potential for being the victim of urban crime than being attacked by any feral or wild animal.
Stranger
Eh, it’s not so much fear of people as it is a desire not to impose. I like to think I go into situations prepared, and can handle independently all but the worst of situations, and it seems like in rural areas my ability to take care of my problems diminishes while the frequency of things I’m unaware/unfamiliar with/unequipped to deal with increases. And for a leisure road trip? That’s more potential hassle than I–
Hey, you didn’t say you don’t skin them alive…
backs out slowly from thread
GPS tends to work better out in the sticks, as there’s more sky to find a signal. My GPS often struggles in a city due to the bridges and tall buildings which prevent a clear view of the sky.
I guess the maps are less reliable in the countryside so you might end up on a dirt road that’s not really meant for cars.
I suspect it’s some kind of phobia, because I’ve known a couple people like that, but it didn’t mattered whether they got “lost” (or missed the exit, it was all the same for them) in the countryside or in an urban area.
You’d be surprised.
Indeed, I am amazed at some of the weirdness that is in my Tom tom. There is a paved county road here that TomTom does not recognize as a road at all. Every mud cow path crossing I get a squawk from my GPS “TURN HERE GODDAM IT!” (OK, I might have tweaked that up a bit)
Also, I think since the 911 address upgrade some years ago, the county FEMA guy, just to be complete, put just about every thing that had ever been passable since pre-Columbian times into the ‘system’. Driving around with the TomTom on, you will be surprised at all the side roads in the thing, and many of them are like drainage ditch right of ways, or abandoned roads from the 50s and 60s.
The paved road that the GPS has a problem with was recently straightened and paved, and must not be in the system accurately.
Another problem; I cannot update my GPS, my internet connection is vastly too slow. TomTom will terminate the download after 4 or 5 hours, it takes over 12 to do an update.
Another curiosity, one day I had been traveling for 10 miles on a county gravel road, when I crossed the county line, even though the road remained gravel, I then got a warning from my TomTom that I was now on gravel! Apparently, if not noted otherwise, the TomTom assumes all roads are paved, unfortunately, few roads in my county are so noted.
This thread makes me sad. I usually get a kick reading about cultural differences but the divide between city and rural people displayed here is distressing.
Last summer I went to a garden supply store, just beyond the used car emporium, out past a housing development. Out in the country. This was about 10-15 miles from my suburban house…On the way home, I took a wrong turn somewhere, out in the country. I found myself on a highway, the name of which was unknown to me, speeding along out into even more country. No road sign, no houses, no gas stations. I literally had no idea where I was…I drove around for a while, taking different side roads, and I STILL didn’t know where I was. It was getting late. I had a quarter tank of gas. I was lost on a strange road and there was a truck tailgating me. … Finally, I decided to head west, if possible, toward the setting sun, and bingo, found a road that I knew would bring me back to the city. This was only a few miles away from my house, but I may as well have been snatched up by aliens and deposited in the Australian outback.
What part of this do you not understand, about fear of getting lost in a rural area? (Unfortunately I didn’t run across any rednecks, banjoes, or cannibals living in a barn, and that’s disappointing, I know.)
Oh, I have one other little story. My boyfriend and I were on his boat on a river, and the motor hit a rock and the blade was broken off. We drifted along for a while until we saw a farmhouse on shore, and then got out the oars and made for shore. Pulled the boat out and beached it, and walked about a quarter mile to the house. We were met by a man and woman on the porch. The woman was resting her hand on the butt of a shotgun leaning against the wall. After some suspicious questioning, we told our story and were deemed to be harmless, and my boyfriend used their phone and called someone to do…something…I dunno. The farmhouse couple turned out to be perfectly decent folks and made some lunch for us. They said they were cautious because, after all, they lived out in the middle of nowhere, and anyone could show up on their doorstep and rob or even kill them. Which explained the shotgun. And I can’t say as I blame them at all.
Before my divorce, I spent ten years living in a very rural part of Georgia, and thought I’d share some related (humorous) anecdotes related to these fears…
First, I actually have been menaced by “wild” dogs in the country - I detailed the whole affair on this very board (obligatory linkage) Granted, that was actually on the outskirts of the podunk rural town I lived outside of, so not actually in the country…but still definitely a rural area! That story also had me running out of gas, five miles from anywhere, which could have been a lot worse - there are areas in that part of Georgia where it could have been 20+ miles before I reached a gas station or anything like it.
But the main anecdote I wanted to share is unrelated - whilst living in said farmhouse way out in the middle of nowhere, it was a common pastime of mine to go target shooting at a nearby outdoor shooting range. One weekend, while my (now ex) wife was out of town, I had gone out on a nice day of plinking and had returned home for the evening, and settled down to clean my firearms, like the responsible gun owner I am. It was getting fairly late, 9:30 or 10:00 at night, when I heard a rapid knocking on my front door.
That in itself was rather strange - we never actually used the front door of the house, as we parked in the rear of the building, and everyone who lived around there and knew us used the rear door as well. And being that it was out in the middle of nowhere, with my nearest neighbor at the time about a mile away, caution was advisable…so I picked up my freshly cleaned double barrel 12 gauge shotgun, put on a smile, and opened the door.
On my porch stood a guy who looked like your stereotypical “biker guy” - bald, beard, leathers, the works. He took one glance at my shotgun, and the poor guy turned about five shades paler. His hands flew up, and he stammered that he was so, so sorry for bothering me, but his bike had run out of gas because every gas station he’d passed for the last 60 miles had been closed (note: a common problem in rural Georgia - a lot of the gas stations shut down at 5:00PM), and could please, he really didn’t want to bother me, but could I please let him use a phone?
I smiled, rested the shotgun on my shoulder, and said I’d do him one better. I kept a gas can in my truck (having learned my lesson from the previous thread) and so I walked back with him to his bike and filled his tank for him. We chatted a bit, and once he realized I wasn’t going to shoot him (and I realized he wasn’t going to shoot me), the conversation was quite friendly. We both laughed when he admitted that my answering the door with the shotgun had “nearly caused him to need to borrow my restroom, and possibly shower”. We then joked about perceptions - him about “scary country folk” and me about “badass biker guys” - it really was funny.
He offered to pay for the gas before he left, but I refused - we “country folk” were too polite to even consider it. 
I thought everybody has heard of the melon heads.
Around Iron River, Wisconsin there are unmarked service roads, regular roads, trails for ATV and for snowmobiles. They all look mostly the same and include old abandoned roads that have sunk into the marshes at places. You do not want to get off the main highway. I’ve seen people hung up on a mound of dirt 3 feet high and miles from an actual road. Good luck if it’s wet and the mud is 3 to 4 feet deep.
Read The Bonfire of the Vanities and then you will know.
Is that supposed to be a reference to my earlier post on the last page:
?
Because otherwise you might need to elaborate a little: the Bonfire of the Vanities is a book about New York City and its various inhabitants; it doesn’t actually involve rural areas at all. My comment was only that there’s a situation presented in the book analogous to the way city people might feel when they’re lost in the boonies, except it’s about very sheltered WASP yuppies getting lost in the inner city. (Among many other things…it’s a rambling and ambitious book that satirizes all social classes.)
I would think that, in order for a book like this one (extremely long, dense, and Dickens-esque) to be a huge bestseller during a time when society at large has mostly forsaken the novel in favor of the movie, it would have to resonate with a lot of people in a personal way.
Why didn’t you pull off the road, let the truck pass, pull the map out of the glove compartment or pull up the route on an inexpensive GPS handset (last year’s model of which can be had for <$150 with nearly current maps)? If you really have this much difficulty navigating by sight/DR, then you should have some means to verify position and determine the correct route.
First of all, why was your boyfriend out on a river in a small boat without a spare prop? Damaged props are a very common occurrence, and having a spare to install is like carrying a spare tire. Second, while it is true that many rural folk are more self-reliant in many ways, including personal protection owing to the fact that aid is tens of minutes or even hours away, it doesn’t mean that they’re inherently more likely to be the target of crime. Answering the door armed is merely a precaution. Anyone who believes that living in suburbia is safer from a crime standpoint needs to look at violent crime demographics.
Stranger
Add homicidal truckers to the list. 
Redneck Rampage pretty much sums up America’s rural cliche’s.
For the same reason why guys refuse to ask for directions:
Invariably you’ll get arcane directions that you couldn’t follow even WITH a Rosetta Stone, such as…
Wal, ya go on down the road apiece, until you come to the Old Smith Place… (It hasn’t been called the “Old Smith Place” since the bank foreclosed on it in 1927 and the Smith family moved out west)…
then you’ll see a house with a red pickup truck in the driveway and ya turn left.
But, what if the red pickup truck isn’t in the driveway?
Wal, ya STILL turn left…
Or you ask directions to Jones St. “Never heard of it!” As you just happen to look up at the intersection sign and see Jones St. I think you could ask where is Main St, and the answer would be, “Never heard of it!”
Or the disgusted looks you get when asking for directions as if you’ve suddenly become one of the lowest life forms on earth for having the temerity to get lost in the first place.
Where’s Jones St?
Dunno.
Anyone around who could tell me?
Dunno.
How about where I could get a map?
Dunno.
Don’t know much, do you?
Mebbe, but at least I ain’t lost…
Now, women will always ask for directions because they subscribe to a theory called Wishful Thinking, that no matter how bad, things will somehow work out for the best. Even if it’s NEVER worked, trying just ONE more time will provide a different result.
Look, ladies, not to be mean, but the sun has been rising in the east for millennia. Wishing deep down in your heart of hearts is not gonna make it rise in the west tomorrow morning.