Why are country roads windy?

Answer 1

Short answer: because it's easier to build them that way.

Country roads are generally older roads constructed with minimal resources (and, incidentally, less environmental impact). In order to make a road straight, substantial earth moving is required to cut into hillsides, fill in hollows, and then to install a drainage system to redirect water and control erosion where the natural flow patterns have been destroyed. All of this requires a lot of effort and heavy construction equipment. Such equipment didn't exist until late in the 19th century and is quite expensive to own and operate today. Plus, a road that seems very twisted at 40 MPH in a car doesn't seem very curved at all at 5 MPH in a horse-drawn carriage, so it wasn't considered worth all the extra expense and effort to make straight roads. So most roads tended to follow the natural contours of the land, and that makes them windy.

There are exceptions, such as in the American Plains, where the land was naturally very flat. In such areas, even the old country roads are straight as arrows--usually with right-angle intersections where one township's grid pattern didn't quite meet up with the neighboring township's roads.