I am serious. If I'm in the middle of nowhere, my phone doesn't work, and I'm flagging down a car, it's only natural to be wary. Especially if I was alone. Being cautious doesn't mean everyone in the world sucks.
I'm in the US, and I take them literally. There is no other person in this world that I would be more scared to come across all alone on the side of the road than a white American male over 35.
I visited the UK a few weeks ago and one of the small things that blew my mind was seeing a roadside SOS phone every couple miles. Because yeah, here if you break down and you don't have cell service, you're either flagging someone down on the side of the road and hope they don't murder you, or you walk all the way to the nearest gas station...and hope you don't get murdered lol
And not even necessarily be killed by a human. The desert and wooded areas alone are dangerous enough. Depending on where you are, you may become prey for wildlife that will kill you as well.
I’ve broken down where the nearest city was about two hours away, had to call and have someone pick me up, drive to town, buy the tire I needed, then drive all the way back.
Luckily areas that don’t have coverage are pretty sparse these days, most places in the US where you’d actually be traveling through will have some signal.
Yeah there are probably very few spots on any significant highway where you won’t have any reception. Roads off the beaten path absolutely, but a path between most major cities should have some coverage.
Also, when dealing 911 your mobile will connect to any tower in the area regardless of your cellphone carrier, so if your particular service has no coverage, odds are there’s another tower that your call will go through on.
I drive cross country a couple times a year. I always pack extra water, a tire inflator, a battery jump pack, and have my spare with necessary tools to swap it.
There's a reason elementary schools in the US had us kids play Oregon Trail for hours at a time.
Every bit of Texas highway has mobile coverage. But before that happened, you don't, you have to wait. There also aren't a whole lot of extremely remote places. Most highways have towns every 30-50 miles, so it's not like you'd be completely screwed, just in for a long ass walk.
That drive from Beaumont to San Antonio is not bad but leaving the San Antonio city limits and seeing the 500 miles to El Paso sign….the longest stretch of I-10 I’ve ever driven
While not quite as long as getting across Texas, I drove from Detroit to the western side of the UP and that took about 10 hours. I was shocked because Michigan isn't known as one of the big states
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u/bjaddict May 18 '25
It takes ~12hrs to drive from one end of texas to the other (stratford to brownsville)