Two thoughts. . .

> California, which is reasonably rural

This kind of remark always makes me think about how such things are defined and about 80-20 rules. Perhaps California is "reasonably rural" in terms of the proportion of its land area that is rural. But population wise it most definitely is not. The [US Census definition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_Sta...) has classified California as the most urbanized state every decade since 1980. California has an 80-20 thing going on where almost all of the population lives on a tiny portion of the land, and then there is an enormous amount of land that is almost totally empty. This is different from more prototypical east-coast-style "urban" states with not so much rural land, and also different from prototypically rural states that don't have any very large cities.

It's true that plenty of CA roads are in bad condition. But CA is in a situation where it has miles and miles of roads in remote areas that barely anyone drives on, and then it has roads in dense urban areas that see some of the heaviest traffic in the US. It's just hard to compare things in terms of miles of road.

The other thing that comes to my mind whenever I see comparisons of US roads with those in other countries is the signage. It does vary from place to place in the US, and outside the US my only real experience is with Europe, but I'm amazed at how much better and more consistent signage seems to be on highways in the US compared to Europe. In the US you can be driving through totally empty land dotted with tiny villages, and still you will see a sign "Tiny Village 20" then "Tiny Village 10", then "Tiny Village next exit", and then the exit. In Europe sometimes you can be almost in the town before you see the one and only sign saying "Medium-sized Town right here!"

In urban areas, it's fairly rare in the US to encounter intersections without street signs that are pretty well visible from all sides of an intersection, whereas in Europe many signs are flat against walls, making them hard to see except from certain angles.

There's more to driving than just road miles. :-)