[OSM-newbies] are roads driveable?

[Dave F.]

David ``Smith'' wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 11:54 PM, Aspen Swartz <aspendel at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> None of the categories are hard-and-fast, and especially since it's a
>> user-generated map, your mileage on each road in your car may vary.
>> Off the top of my head though, "footway", "path" and "pedestrian"
>> probably won't take vehicles; "track" may only be suitable for 4-wheel
>> drive vehicles; and in rural areas "driveway" and "residential" may
>> not be free to access. "unclassified" may be tagged that way because
>> the mapper didn't know the nature of the road.  All the other
>> roadtypes look driveable to me.
>>     
>
> I thought highway=track was meant for race tracks.
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dtrack
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:tracktype

>   Running, horse
> racing, auto racing, that sort of thing. 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:leisure
>  Isn't that what the wiki
> says?  If you're talking about a track left by occasional passage of
> animals or vehicles where there's no road, I think that's what
> highway=path is for.
>
> Unclassified is a very poorly-named tag, because in reality it is its
> own distinct classification.  It's used on mostly rural roads that are
> driveable enough, but don't go anywhere useful to through traffic and
> are not residential in nature.  If the mapper doesn't know the nature
> of the road, it should be tagged highway=road.
>
>