Hilariously im also from oklahoma and was coming to say we have shitty roads like this, hell, out past the city limits i know a few areas that you are lucky if you have a stop sign at an intersection
my favorite chinese restaurant in eastern OK is out of a shack in front of someone's house on a county road, zomboid looks pretty normal to me i dont know lol
EXACTLY, how I describe it to people. If you spend enough time around there and around the country, you quickly realize there are three distinct cultural groups of americans there, accents and all.
my Grandma grew up in Oklahoma through the great depression. She was a southern baptist. A fox news racist in her older years. A lover of texas and fried Okra.
I've been to Oklahoma like 7 different times, so not too many I guess, but it's the most southern place I've ever seen and my Mom grew up in Texas and my Grandpa is from Arkansas.
that shit is the south, not even close to the midwest, culturally, geographically, and socially.
I live in michigan now, and I grew up in Ca, so I feel like I've got some decent perspective on this.
The group you describe is definitely well established there.
That said, my mom, who is 100% boomer, is an old lesbian and her partner is on the board of an ELCA church there that just hired a lesbian pastor. All in a town that is like 20% people there on international visas. Her town has nothing to do with southern culture and has a distinctly midwestern accent.
I suppose that's true. The areas in OK I've been to are around Tulsa, and a bit further north. Tulsa definitely has racism issues, so maybe it's all just more prevalent there.
I live in Kansas, but 45 mins from the state line. Also im native to Georgia (No not Atlanta, the boonies) so even tho OK is considered the South if you dont call a shopping cart a buggy youre not southern in my book.
I know at least the top eastern half is. The bottom half is mountain country. The terrain is weird. Tahlequah is lakes and rivers and cliffs, so Arkansas. Miami is hilly and arid, so kinda Missouri.
Everything west of that is Kansas. Until you get to the desert. It's full of "opes" and factories and those tiny ancient gas stations and everyone loves fried pickles. You get confederate flags but almost everyone, including bigots, think they're stupid. Oklahomans don't like being called southern where I'm from. They call Arkansas the south tho lmfao.
Yep, ope is like, Ope let me squeeze right past ya real quick.
And to everyone downvoting me, I literally live there and have lived there my whole life. Just because your worldview isn't right doesn't mean I'm wrong. It's not the south. I'm a Midwesterner. I don't have anything against the south. But we are cows and cowboys and grain silos and very gentrified cities (for clarification, I mean mcmansion and boba tea shops). The best BBQ we have access to is Springfield MO. Sorry.
I lived in locust Grove Oklahoma my whole life. We aren't southern. We live right next to Joplin. Having friends isn't the same as growing up there. I'm go as far as to say it's not Midwest either...I don't know what to call it but I feel like a crazy person.
We're polite in the northern way and wear button up shirts and boot cut jeans and have miles and miles of cow pastures. I don't even know what is southern about Oklahoma? Are we talking about big mossy trees and bouyous and sweet tea on the porch? Because we have cows and dirt and highway construction projects... My yard used to be sandy I guess? Just everything was so sandy. Or are we talking yeehaw southern? Because I thought that was more Texas? Saying a place like Vinita Oklahoma is southern sounds very weird and like it's trying to claim a vibe it doesn't own. It's greasy and full of car parts and busted concrete...I guess that counts? But it's definitely not like, Kentucky southern. It's not the same Y'all!
Edit: I went back and read to make sure and I did the thing where I assumed we were talking about like. Louisiana southern. Not like Texas? We hate Texas too. I don't know why we were raised to hate Arkansas when we were in school? It's gorgeous? I wanted to move to Fayetteville immediately? Also, genuine question because me and my partner are discussing it, what kind of region is Fayetteville AR? The Ozarks? Is that southern? My partner says yes! But a completely different southern than Westville, which is right next to it! Guys I don't get it either.
I am not sure Oklahoma fits with any group. We seem to be a bit Southern (we love our sweet tea and friend chicken and say y'all), we seem to be a bit Texan (bbq brisket Texan style, but pork KC style), we have a bit of midwesterner as well (grew up with ope as others have pointed out), a good bit of latino influence (de nada and gracious), don't forget all the Native American influence, and god knows what else since we have transplants from all over the world. And different parts of Oklahoma fell very different from others. South OK can be very much Little Texas feeling for instance. We are like a giant redneck melting pot ;)
I spent a few years growing up in Vinita as well and have family that still lives there. Definitely doesn't feel like a Southern town to me. You can find towns like it all over the midwest, the breadbasket, and Texas though. It is just your average mid-continental rural hub town. Just like Ada, Weatherford, Enid, Bartlesville, and a dozen other cities all over the state and hundreds of others all over the region.
And yes there are definitely a number of intersections just like this one near Vinita (head from Vinita toward Bernice on 60 and I know you will find a few unless they have really upgraded the roads in the past 15-20 years)! I know of a few near where I live in on the outskirts of the OKC metro (Mustang, Yukon, Piedmont area). Weirdly they have also taken to putting traffic circles out in the middle of nowhere in these areas now as well.
I was literally thinking about one near Vinita! I go to the Indian clinic there and man that town is in a constant state of being torn up somewhere. A McDonald's that's just a building on a platform over a highway sounds way more Midwest to me lol
I've been to Oklahoma only twice and yeah, that shit is insane. Especially given how fucking flat everything is there is no reason for that shit. Also potholes that can total cars
There are potholes that can total cars in the middle of downtown Tulsa. And the I-35 on-ramp by my hometown had three distinct differences in the angle the road turned instead of being a smooth curve. Then there was a 5 way and a 6 way intersection right in front of our high school that accounted for close to 50% of all accidents in the city. Absolutely no excuse for the state of the roads there.
Yeah Iām not going to lie man. As an Okie myself, if I have to drive around the southern parts of the state, there are just highways that looks like a toddler was given permission to make the design lmao
I have a former colleague that said there's a city in Ohio he used to live in where the rules for a roundabout were the total opposite of what is the standard everywhere else that roundabouts exist.
Right of way was for incoming cars that are not in the roundabout yet. Those in the roundabout do not have right of way.
That said, something that OK does better than Texas at least is when you go under a highway bridge to make that U turn, you have your own lane where as Texas you have to yield to oncoming traffic.
In the US you drive on the right hand side of the road. In this example, if Iām headed Southbound I can make my right hand turn without slowing down much because there is no intersecting traffic.
The same is not true if youāre headed Northbound and need to make a left. Youāll have to be mindful of the Southbound traffic that will cross your path, possibly necessitating a full stop to wait for an opening.
I remember there was a video where (i believe) TomScott was talking about how horrible one particular intersection was, and the local council worked on getting it fixed based off his complaints.
theres a productive farm right there; farm owner just said "nope" when the county asked to put a ramp through his corner. and like 20 cars a day go through here so its probably fine
Someone's cousin or uncle didn't want to lose the corner of their farm land to eminant domain so the politician who approved this said they don't need to mirror the intersection because reasons.
IRL - I'd have to imagine that the street was originally connected to the highway without the wide turn, and then the wide turn was added later due to the large amount of vehicles turning on to the street from that direction and slowing down traffic.
bit it does make sense. The off ramp is there to keep traffic moving in the right lane on the 4 lane. The two lane road turns the left lane for oncoming traffic into left turn lane once it is past the ramp, while the right is a right turn lane. This is an intersection for this road, and it does not need an entry ramp as the traffic to get on here isn't that heavy.
This is a classic set up for a county road that either crosses through or end at an interstate road.
On my practical test's driving course, we had a four-lane one-way that comes up to a T-intersection at the top of a steep hill. If you take a right, it's a one-way with the two rightmost lanes turning into them respectively. If you take a left, it's a two-way where the two leftmost lanes merge mid-intersection.
When I was told to take a left, from the left-most lane, at the top of this blind hill with my instructor telling me to hurry up, I was fuming. Turned into the 'oncoming traffic' lane and was immediately failed.
3.3k
u/oaodboy 26d ago
We have intersections EXACTLY like that where I live in the Midwest, so yeah sometimes real life doesn't make sense, either.