Among the things I love about being constantly on the road in America is how we’ve gotten to know so many parts of the country and how we feel at home in so many different places. Without a map and without GPS, we know our way around many of the country’s big cities — Orlando, Denver, Seattle. We know the main streets and side streets of resort towns like Hilton Head Island, Vail, and Park City. And we don’t need help finding our way in the rural parts of South Carolina, Wyoming, and central Oregon. We’ve developed a knowledge, understanding, and genuine feel for this country by learning and driving its roads.
Ross Douthat recently went driving across America with his family and wrote a column about experiencing America by driving through it. His column got me thinking about our experience and what America’s roads have given us.
Driving the way that we do is a purposeful act. We move through the country going where we choose at our own pace and time. Most people are simply swept along through life like corks floating down a stream. We use our car to gain freedom, familiarity, and mastery by navigating through the complex landscape that is America. We’re not blindly following the commands of a GPS voice, and we’re not passive beings carried along by a self-driving car of the future — a concept that seems to us to be un-American. In a self-driving car, you’re no longer mentally involved in your own navigation through life.
Understanding the places we visit in the United States through the country’s roadways allows us to feel at home in many parts of the country. The scale of America – its mix of cities, states, and regions – doesn’t lend itself to walking or cycling. It’s suited to the advantages offered by the automobile. The virtues of being a good driver – the mix of independence and cooperation, knowledge and responsibility – are the same virtues required for good citizenship in this sprawling, diverse country with all of its vastness.
If you do not drive and get to know your country’s roads and highways, what path do you have to mastery and knowledge of your country, what path do you have to experience America beyond your own class and tribe and the bubble you live in? To be a citizen, to know your country, you have to drive it.
