3 Things That You Won’t See On Montana Roads (Yet)

Driving in major cities is something that I have done, but it isn't something that I get excited about. In Montana you don't get the opportunity to drive in major amounts of traffic and all that comes with it. Driving on even the busiest roads in Montana's biggest cities, doesn't compare to the traffic in major metropolitan areas.

No Matter How Bad Montana Traffic Is, It Can Be Much Worse

Recently we drove through Seattle, Washington and it was eye-opening. I don't drive there enough so I always seem to forget how awful the traffic can be. Pretty quickly I am reminded quite suddenly how frustrating it can be. Driving, for what seems like hours, and only going a few miles in total. There were a few things that I noticed about driving in Seattle, that for now, wouldn't work on Montana's roads.

Toll Lanes- Toll roads and bridges are now more prevalent around Seattle. Yes, you have to pay to use certain roads and bridges. Living in Montana as long as I have and seeing how frugal Montanans can be, I can't imagine that wouldn't cause an uproar across the state.

Carpool Lanes- Montana doesn't hasn't enough traffic to be in need of a carpool lane, yet. For those that don't know, if you have 2 or more people in your vehicle you can use the carpool lanes. Driving around Montana, you may notice there aren't that many people that carpool. There are a lot of vehicles on the road in Montana that only have one passenger. Unless you can count your dog, drivers here won't be using these lanes any time soon.

Driving On the Shoulder- This one actually shocked me to see in practice. There are parts of I-405  where drivers can legally drive on the shoulder of the road if traffic is too heavy. There are signs that let you know when the shoulder of the road is open for driving. They drive at the same speed and sometimes even faster than drivers in the regular lanes. That could never work in Montana, mainly because of the weather, we need a place to put our snow and a lot of times that is the shoulder of the road.

Driving in Scotland May Give You Nightmares

Just when I think about how bad the traffic is, or how bad it could be, I remember back to the time when we were driving through Scotland. The highways there have multiple lane roundabouts that you have to navigate, while driving on the wrong side of the road, and on the wrong side of the car. Now that is enough to give you nightmares.