My bad on the overall wording of the article, then. In context, especially with the changes, it's fine. The reason I say "typically paved" is that throughout most of the country the preferred roads will be paved—typically, not always. We can change it to something like "typically but not always paved," perhaps.
There are certainly reasons to avoid roads with poor surfaces whether paved or not, but there are also perfectly valid reasons to avoid unpaved roads altogether. Dirt and gravel alike cause similar problems particular to loose road surfaces—things fly around, whether rocks or dirt or dust, and get all up in your undercarriage and also all up on your car. Maybe you have to pick up a client for business and the 5 minutes the gravel road saves you doesn't counterbalance the 10 minutes you have to spend at the car wash. Or maybe you just like your paintjob.
Point being that there are valid reasons to want to avoid roads with a poor surface and valid reasons to want to avoid unpaved roads. Many of the concerns with dirt roads which are intrinsic to the dirt surface are also present with other types of unpaved roads, whereas "poor surface" is not necessarily intrinsic to any particular type of road, simply more likely with some than others (which is why hard surfaces exist). I see two reasonably valid interpretations of the 'dirt road' type beyond just dirt, and the latter (1) is a more logical connection, to me, and importantly (2) does not require any value judgments or arbitrary decisions on a road-to-road basis.
I understand that the situation is quite different out west, but the purpose of this page is to provide the general rule, which states/regions can modify if necessary—because not every state will set its own standard. The better general standard is the one which is not subject to individual interpretation. Modify as you need, but don't necessarily play that up in the general article.
There are certainly reasons to avoid roads with poor surfaces whether paved or not, but there are also perfectly valid reasons to avoid unpaved roads altogether. Dirt and gravel alike cause similar problems particular to loose road surfaces—things fly around, whether rocks or dirt or dust, and get all up in your undercarriage and also all up on your car. Maybe you have to pick up a client for business and the 5 minutes the gravel road saves you doesn't counterbalance the 10 minutes you have to spend at the car wash. Or maybe you just like your paintjob.
Point being that there are valid reasons to want to avoid roads with a poor surface and valid reasons to want to avoid unpaved roads. Many of the concerns with dirt roads which are intrinsic to the dirt surface are also present with other types of unpaved roads, whereas "poor surface" is not necessarily intrinsic to any particular type of road, simply more likely with some than others (which is why hard surfaces exist). I see two reasonably valid interpretations of the 'dirt road' type beyond just dirt, and the latter (1) is a more logical connection, to me, and importantly (2) does not require any value judgments or arbitrary decisions on a road-to-road basis.
I understand that the situation is quite different out west, but the purpose of this page is to provide the general rule, which states/regions can modify if necessary—because not every state will set its own standard. The better general standard is the one which is not subject to individual interpretation. Modify as you need, but don't necessarily play that up in the general article.
Re: Road Types (USA) – comprehensive overhaul of drivable ro