I have spent my whole life in Alaska and when I travel to other places, I realize how unique Alaska’s driving conditions are. Here are just some of the things that are different about driving in Alaska.
Related: 35 Things That Are Different About Living In Alaska
Need A Car
Transportation with bus routes and trains isn’t reliable enough, so to live in Alaska, you really need to have your own car to get anywhere.
Ghetto cars
Many Alaskan cars are held together with duct tape, or plastic wrap. There are lots of dings in the windshields and there may be several bumps on both front and back bumpers or even no bumper. My second car never had the rear bumper replaced and one of the fog lights never worked.
Gravel On Roads
Depending on where you live in Alaska, the DOT may use gravel to keep roads from being too slick. The salt doesn’t work when it gets too cold.
Ignore Lines On The Road
The lines on the road are ignored for the greater part of the year as the first driver who drove down the road after the snow determined where the new driving zone was for that road.
Snow Banks
Sometimes snow banks can take up half of the area that is meant to be for driving. This increases the need to ignore the lines on the road.
Cars Are Winterized
Winterization includes an oil pan heater, a block heater, and a battery pad heater. It can also include a transmission pan heater. These are then attached to a plug that sits outside the font bumper. At 0 degrees, cars should be plugged in if they are sitting outside for an extended period of time. Fluids are also changed out to make sure that they work. This ensures that the car will start when the temperatures are cold.
Long Instate Road Trips
If you want to go between the two largest cities, Fairbanks and Anchorage, it takes 7 hours of driving at 60 miles per hour to get from one city to the other.
Snow Banks Can Block Line Of Vision
Sometimes it’s hard to get far enough out to see the road for ongoing cars when snow banks are in the way.
Washboard Roads
During some parts of the year, roads get snow, then it gets warm enough to melt, then it gets snow again, then it melts. This constant change can lead to some roads that feel like you’re driving on a washboard.
Gravel Roads
Some roads are not paved and only have gravel on them. There’s two beautiful towns (Mccarthy & Keneccot) that are right next to each other that are only accessible by going on a gravel road for 2-4 hours.
Winter Tires
If you own a car, you need separate winter tires for between September and May. Blizzak tires are great because they don’t have studs in them which are not allowed on the roads between May and September.
Expressways Have Intersections
I didn’t realize this was weird until someone moved up from outside of Alaska and informed me, but many of our expressways and highways have intersections on them. Also on the Parks highway, the road between our biggest cities, there are speed zones that drop the 65 mph down to 20 mph at some points.
Highway Numbers Are Obsolete
In Alaska, the number doesn’t matter and no one who lives in Alaska knows which highway is 1, 2, or 3. We simply refer to them by their name.
