[leggomylibro]

Yeah, I noticed these signs along the highways in Texas when I was driving around the US.

And I chuckled at how they used the "Don't mess with Texas" phrase despite having much lower littering fines than most other states.

Like with everything else in this country, it's all about the marketing.

[s_y_n_t_a_x]

Texas seems on the heavier side of the fines/jail time, at least normal.

https://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resour...

[dylan604]

I moved from Texas to California, and shortly after crossing the border into California, I saw my first litter warning sign with fine amount posted. On this sign was also the fine for abandoning an animal. The litter fine was significantly higher than abandoning an animal. I was kind of appalled at the fact.

[leggomylibro]

Interesting - you learn something new every day.

I guess my trip was probably biased towards states with lots of parks and forests, who probably had more incentive to protect their local environments.

[s_y_n_t_a_x]

Out of curiosity which states did you visit?

Texas has amazing (and clean!) state and national parks as well. Definitely worth a visit, especially Big Bend.

[leggomylibro]

Oh, mostly the forest-y and nature-y states - Arkansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Idaho, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, California...I would've liked to see more of Montana and Michigan, but it gets cold up there in the winters.

Mostly I drove through Texas to avoid Oklahoma (one of my least favorite states), but the Guadalupe Mountains were very nice.

I'm not sure I'd call it 'clean' though; the air seemed awfully smoggy and I saw almost as many flaring wells as I did in North Dakota. But there were lots of open spaces and the people were friendly.

Washington, Arkansas, New Mexico, and Utah get my vote for the best places to do a parks/forests vacation, depending on your interests.

[seandhi]

The air was “smoggy” driving through Texas? Uh huh... I’m going to go ahead and put that on the same level as your claim about Texas being lax on litter penalties.

By the way, Texas has more acres of forest land than every state you mentioned as being nature-y and forest-y and having more incentive to care about the environment. The only state with more forest than Texas is Alaska.

Like someone else said, Texas is too big to make generalizations.

[s_y_n_t_a_x]

I don't believe your smog claim. Texas is massive and has wide open skies. You'll find smog in big cities before you find it anywhere in Texas.

All of those states you listed have really lax litter laws...

[samatman]

This is... not a great generalization to make about the second-largest state in the Union.

[chrisco255]

They also have "The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You" signs, that almost scare you into behaving.

[strait]

Primary school in rural Texas. We'd spend an hour a day singing songs mostly about how much God blesses Texas, America, and the Marine Corps, then finish off with The Eyes of Texas song.

In our version, The Eyes ended up in the kitchen watching Dinah. She was about to blow her horn, thus ending the mandate of The Eyes. We would plead for her not to do such a thing, for her sake, for our sake, for goodness sake! The Eyes would know.