Americans who live near state borders,how do you notice you've crossed the border?
Besides the obvious "welcome to [state name]" sign. Is there a significant change in architecture, infrastructure, agriculture, store brands, maybe even culture?
When you pass into Indiana, you're immediately overcome with this opressive sense of forboding and dispair. Also the roads immediately turn to shit.
Like others have said, the roads here tell you.
Specifically, when you cross State Line Road, you've crossed the state line.
The roads get better, the drivers get worse, there's jughandles everywhere, they won't let me pump my own gas, and there's liquor stores that aren't owned by the state.
Also I have to cross a river, and pretty much everything gets flatter.
For the other borders, mostly the same. One direction you start seeing more places serving crab, another has no sales tax, one is just boring and depressing, and the other unless you cross at some very specific places is mostly just woods and farms and shit that kind of blend into our own but with better roads.
Right now just with signs, but if Wisconsin doesn't get their shit together it will be a clearly marked, well equipped check point
The drivers for sure. I live in a major metropolitan area on the east coast and at the intersection of three jurisdictions.
My home state’s drivers are slow as molasses and geriatric or are obviously foreign and didn’t take U.S. driver’s ed.
Across the river is a bunch of sheltered drivers who I normally pity. Their city is usually walkable or transit-able so driving is not something you could even expect them to be good at.
And then there’s the adjacent state which is notoriously home to some of the worst drivers in the US who genuinely, routinely make me fear for my life when they’re in my proximity on the road lol. Hate those drivers.
Other than that, I think the culture of my home state is much warmer and friendly while the adjacent state is nice but the people are also a bit more standoffish and cold. Home state is a barren wasteland of awful roads and data centers, adjacent state has so much green space and well-developed communities.
you know, most roads will tell you. The change in asphalt for sure will tell you exactly
plus for me at least, Idaho is different than Washington
the roadside advertisements is instantly different
the highways are laid out in much different ways
the people are absolutely different almost to an extreme
Where I come from the asphalt change was how I knew I was in the next County
oh yeah, that happens here too, just not as much because our counties usually have the same funding and contractors
My state disallows billboard advertising, which I forget until I cross into another state and have to suffer through Jesus and injury lawyer ads.
Why is it always lawyers?
I saw one that was just a photo of an eye and a phone number. I wasn't from the area, so it was driving me nuts wondering what it meant. Didn't take long driving through the area to learn that this lawyer has so many different billboards up, that his eye alone has become recognizable.
I couldn't believe driving through Missouri. What a shit hole.
I never saw these personally, but ten years ago in Matt Gaetz's district a shelter ran billboards with "She's your daughter, not your date". Yikes.
One of the many great things about Vermont
Never been, but I've heard it's lovely.
Vermont? I remember that that's a thing there.
In CA there's this injury lawyer who has billboards all over highway 101 from San Francisco to San Diego. Hundreds of billboards. His name on the billboards is Sweet James and he has a pony tail. Sweet James. I don't know how a lawyer could become so seemingly popular while using that name.
My state has piss poor roads.
Every time I leave my state the roads are noticeably smoother and less noisy.
It’s very distinct and almost comical.
Lmao I was driving about 16 hours solo to get back to Michigan. Legitimately immediately after crossing the Ohio to Michigan border, the road contrast was so incredibly stark lol. Immediate potholes everywhere.
I'm up in Canada and we have provinces here ... I live in Ontario and in the year 2000 me and a friend took a motorcycle ride across Canada to the west coast. Great trip.
But for motorcycle riders in Ontario, especially northern Ontario, its famous for rain during the summer, especially when you want to go riding. Sure enough in the first week of July that we started our trip, trying to make sure to catch the best weather for riding, we rode through rain for about three days as we drove through northern Ontario.
The funniest thing was ... as soon as we crossed the Ontario/Manitoba border, the skies parted and I could literally see dark clouds over Ontario and bright clear summer skies to the west .... right at the border of the two provinces.
We had great weather the rest of the trip! ... and sure enough when we did the return trip, we were rained on again in northern Ontario!
I pray for my suspension every time I go from Ontario to Quebec.
I had that driving into a new county by the coastline. Right at the county line it was like a sheet of rain pulled across the road.
Let me guess, South Carolina? Been through there twice, and the change was jarring and immediately noticeable crossing into Georgia or NC.
michigan?
I plead the 5th.
I travel a lot throughout the US, and sometimes the changes are obvious while other times I can be driving and not entirely sure which state I'm in just from looking around on the highway. As others have said while driving on a major highway a clue can be a huge store full of items like fireworks just across the border from a state they aren't legal in.
The geography and environment can certainly be a big clue. Driving through West Virginia there are tunnels through large mountains, Pennsylvania around the Pittsburgh area has steel bridges, Louisiana has highways raised up from the muck, there are mountains that the highways wind around in North Carolina that give way to pretty flat highways as you go south. Kentucky has long depressing stretches of straight boring road. I've noticed even traffic patterns can say things as Georgia highways always have a higher number of semitrucks than anywhere else for example. Nevada is flat and open but as you go into Utah it gets windy and rocky, and cell signal usually goes out for a bit.
Staying in different states I notice alcohol sales rules are different. In some states you basically don't see any alcohol outside of designated stores for it including no beer at gas stations, in other states you see beer for sale widely but hard liquor only at designated stores, and in other states hard liquor at WalMart is perfectly normal.
I've found on the whole that people are actually nicer than average in Utah. While coffee shops exist I have noticed in offices there is often a lack of a central coffee machine.
Louisiana everyone I deal with from there has a tendency to be much more relaxed than average about showing up exactly on time for things. Louisiana itself also has a cultural divide between the northern part which is more generic US south, and the southern part which has the more creole and tourist heavy atmosphere.
I honestly don't mind Ohio. I know it's an internet meme to hate it, but aside from their obsession with dumping chili on unrelated foods it's decent. Has a strong blue collar streak kind of like Pennsylvania culture.
Texas has a big cowboy influence and they don't let you not know it. The roads tend to big big and wide which is great, except the freeways especially in Dallas can become confusing multilevel nightmares.
California has lots of Spanish signs, lots of first generation Mexicans who bring culture with them. Lots of for example Mexican super markets. Californians have a culture of going FAST on freeways if there isn't gridlock traffic, in some cases going 100mph just barely keeps you up with traffic.
In NJ all the gas stations are full service only. If you try to start pumping your own gas the attendant will start yelling at you telling you to stop
I often get away with taking the hose out when the pump is done, they don’t seem to care about that. Usually quicker than waiting for them to walk back to my car. Only time I appreciate the full service is when it’s cold as fuck out or just bad weather in general.
There's a big ass river, so on this side of it you're in IL and the other side is IA.
I knew a family who's house was in New York and the backyard was in New Jersey. No, you couldn't tell.
Well, there's a big fucking river—so that helps.
West Coast perspective:
Further north...
My southern neighbor:
Major roads have a "welcome to wherever" sign but minor ones won't. They're always a clear delineation in the pavement, though, because neither state is going to pave one single molecule of distance further than they have to. And they never seem to be able to arrange it so that there isn't a noticeable bump at the junction.
One of my neighboring states also has some kind of pathological aversion to putting complete and legible signs for the names of roads at intersections, too. So the disappearance of all useful street signs is therefore usually also a clue.
Everytime I cross into Ohio I feel like I'm losing the will to live.
I feel that too, and i live here :(
Highways go from being free to costing money (Illinois 😒)
I cross a bridge over a river
I live close to the Louisiana border, so I know I'm in LA when the roads turn to shit.
Crossing from LA to Mississippi, you notice there's a lot more cops.
I don’t live near there anymore, but when I did you could legitimately tell when you crossed to NJ because there was trash absolutely everywhere along the sides of highway.
A lot of states in the south will also have a precipitous road quality drop at the state line.
What part of Jersey? Just curious. I will say, I’ve been happy with the NJ plastic bag ban because it’s helped some. Still wayyy too many people around here that don’t give a shit and litter.
Trenton area mostly. The bag ban wasn’t in effect last time I visited, so if it’s improved the situation that’s great.
Most major roads have a sign. If I'm using Google Maps, it will yell at me: "WELCOME TO [STATE NAME]".
I’ve lived near the Mason Dixon line for my whole life and you know when you get to Maryland because the roads aren’t covered with potholes and/or construction.
Wait are you coming from PA or DE? Because the Maryland roads near Virginia are god awful. And I mean the little roads as well as the Maryland half of the beltway that seems to always be under construction.
Coming from PA. As bad as MD roads are ours are worse
The same goes for the Netherlands and Belgium. Or at least it used to be, I haven't been to belgium in years.
When you cross from Nevada into California, the roads turn to shit.
You have to go across the biggest river around.
Delaware makes you pay to leave New Jersey
"If youre good at something, dont do it for free."
You gotta pay to leave NJ regardless of which way you go which I think is funny. Makes me think of a Bronx tale; “now youse can’t leave”
There’s a spot near me where 3 intersect right on the road. The pavement is in a different state of disrepair for each. You can see it and hear it driving along.
You should bounce from Alabama to Mississippi, night and day difference, which is funny because Americans lump the two states together.
We drive hundreds and hundreds of miles a year through backwoods Alabama highways, thence into Mississippi. There is one short stretch where the road is messed up. Going into Mississippi, the road turns to crap instantly, even the US highways are somehow underfunded.
Gas stations in AL are neat enough, in MS there's trash flying around everywhere. For that matter, you can tell by the small towns. Alabama side? Generally charming, though poverty is bad. Pass into Mississippi? Next town you come to will be a wasteland of poverty and ground down infrastructure.
Forest drops quickly in favor of farmland. AL is the most forested state in America. MS countryside looks more like Oklahoma.
Going from Florida into Alabama, you really can't tell without a sign, and there usually is one, or Google Maps announces it. The landscape and forests don't change until you've gone a ways north or west. Takes awhile to start seeing hills! Florida's the flattest state in America.
Street signs in Wisconsin and Illinois differ
The other big thing for knowing I'm in Illinois is seeing gasoline and diesel prices significantly higher than in my state. It's not just fossil fuels either, charging my EV in Illinois makes it cost more than fueling my wife's SUV in my state and driving the same trip. The roads aren't much better either for the higher taxes either.
Also, most state highway signs are unique for each state, with many including an outline of the state.
I once lived in a small city right on that state's border. It was sort of a suburb tho to a very large city in the neighboring state. The major roads would have signage, but on the smaller roads there really wasn't any way to tell. The main difference tho was that the large city's public transit options extended pretty far out even into the small towns along the border, but wouldn't at all come into my small city..
Where I live now, you have to cross a very large river to get into the neighboring state. What's worth sharing here tho, is that there is a nearby county line, where even tho there's a sign, you don't need it at all. The landscape/biome changes pretty much at the county line.
It goes from a sort of temperate rainforest-like climate, to arid grassland/high desert climate. You'll be driving thru areas with large, old growth evergreens and lots of ferns underneath, and then it turns to dead, dry, brown grass and sagebrush shrubs everywhere. Like, it could also even be raining the whole first part of the drive there, but once you get to this county line the rain almost always dissipates. It's pretty wild.
I used to live in the US and travel a lot by car. The infrastructure, specifically the roads, their striping, their guardrails, etc. could change drastically at state borders. They could sometimes even be of different quality and material at county borders within a state.
When I lived in the Midwest one of the clearest signals (aside from the obvious signage) was the college football team swag on cars and in front of houses.
One comment mentioned that some things are legal in one state but illegal in another.
And I also remember that laws in general are often quite different between states.
So, I am wondering if there exist some kind of controls near state borders to catch illegal stuff and practices (or even wanted persons?) crossing the border?
they used to search all cars entering minnesota from wisconson for fireworks until the courts ruled that was illegal without a warant for the specific cars to search. This was around 30 years ago. California has done searchs for 'bugs' before but don't know if the still do.
in every case I've seen you don't see any difference but locals know and will bicker over trivial things like sport teams or best state bird.
California still maintains agricultural inspection stations. Based on the FAQ, I think the legal workaround they're using is that they can deny entry to a vehicle until it is inspected even though they cannot, strictly speaking deny entry to people.
California has done searchs for ‘bugs’ before but don’t know if the still do.
I guess that is not "Bugs" as in butterfly?
This would become quite a thorny constitutional issue very quickly. The 14th amendment explicitly specifies that one state can't try to prosecute someone for something done in another state that was legal there but is illegal here. This has further been interpreted to mean that interstate travel as a whole is a protected right, and any form of checkpoint or other hassle-station on a border between states would surely also be a 4th amendment violation.
That's not to say some idiot won't try it eventually, especially given the current political climate, but up until now it's not done as a matter of course.
A state neighboring mine got in big time hot water a decade or so ago for stationing their own cops in our state and tailing people out of liquor store parking lots with the aim of harassing them over the minutiae of the differences in liquor laws between the two. Obviously that didn't fly, because that state does not have jurisdiction here which means they have no grounds for a stop or search. Likewise, entering another state is not legal grounds for a stop and search unless that state's law enforcement already has some manner of articulable probable cause.
Ok, expected this to be covered legally somehow.
Also as I assume that freedom of movement would be a value you are regarding highly in the States.
Yes! When you cross into Virginia one is greeted with signage expressing radar detectors are illegal.
Yes indeedy! And to turn on your lights if your wipers are on, and to buckle up, and your speed may be monitored by aircraft. But pay no mind to the aircraft signs. The program ended up being way too expensive and they just never took the signs down. But do watch out for those cut throughs between the trees along the interstates because staties absolutely are hiding in there hoping for easy pickins.
And some have radar detector detectors. Turn your device off if you don't want an extra $100 added to your speeding ticket.
Just owning them or actually using them? What are the fines?
Not typically. You'll see police along the major highways for speeders and the like but no state border patrol like that. Legally often transporting across state lines is a crime in and of itself but it's one of those things where they look the other way unless they catch you using whatever item.
Often this is done for practical purposes, because if it's legal in the state you started in, and might be legal in your final destination, they'd piss off more people that not of they stopped and confiscated from everyone.
Makes sense. Would also just generate work for the police forces with probably only low level violations to be uncovered.
Being practical is a good approach.
this is such an adorable question.
The time on my phone changed.
The road surface materials and condition of the road changes.
Some states/towns limit billboards and tall sign poles. And some are very maximalist about it.
Yeah. Drive into South Carolina and the atmosphere just feels like you’ve rolled around on a truck stop bathroom floor. Then there’s all the fireworks stands, DUI defense attorney billboards, shit roads, Palmetto signs, etc. I think they just got Jersey Mike’s because I saw a bunch of plaques for them on the exits.
Max speed limits can vary by states.
In most cases it isn't apparent and doesn't matter. But there are some that are* noticeable and do matter. Having traveled to most states via car, it's been interesting to see the ones that stood out.
Store brands are mostly about distance from the warehouse.
culture and language changes but there isn't normally a clear line of where one starts - it is a continum. (the minnesota accent is only spoken by a minority in mn)
It's only regularly spoken by a minority but most can and will break it out on ocassion. It's always fun to do on vacation.
I don't live near the border, but one difference I notice when crossing over is the roads are always better. Doesn't matter which state I cross over into; roads a better (ours are shit).
I live in New Jersey, so I usually notice I've left the state because I've driven over a bridge into a large city - that's usually my first clue.
When driving through the Kansas City metro area, the road that splits the two states is literally named State Line Road. Everything looks the same on both sides of the road.
Otherwise there tend to be signs on roads welcoming you to whichever state depending on the direction you are going. Those signs used to match up with a change in road maintenance quality but Kansas decided to join the race to the bottom so it isn't as noticeable anymore.
Well, I live on the Minnesota side of the Minnesota / Wisconsin border and normally I can tell I crossed the border because I have to cross the 4th largest river in the world, the Mississippi river.
Joking aside a big tell used to be frac sand mines. Minnesota cracked down on them much harder much more quickly than Wisconsin so you would see them all over the place in Wisconsin but not in MN. I haven't seen as many of those lately though. Also If I drive too far south I wind up driving out of the Kwik Trip gas station zone and into the vastly inferior Caseys gas station zone in Iowa.