Dear Sir or Madam:
I was recently very disappointed to see that your state does not make your official road map available at the rest stops, unlike every other state I’ve ever driven through. I make it a point to collect road maps from every state I drive through, and was unable to procure a road map from Kansas.
Now, I realize that, with Kansas being a state where the only industry is agriculture, and agriculture being a low profit margin business, your state is trying to avoid unnecessary overhead of supplying maps at the rest stops. This is understandable, especially considering the fact that almost no one ever wants to visit your state, and thus would have no use for a road map of Kansas. In fact, when the shortest path between places people actually want to visit happens unfortunately to fall through the state of Kansas, travellers almost never venture out of sight of the interstate, and no one needs an official road map just to navigate interstates.
So, on the surface, not making road maps available in the rest stops seems like a wise decision. However, I advise you to consider the following benefits of supplying roadmaps at your rest stops.
Kansas is a large state, in the sense that it covers a large quantity of square miles and in no other sense whatsoever. Should a traveller make an unfortunate wrong turn, he or she could get lost and end up miles away from familar roads, and thus be forced to spend unnecessary time in Kansas. Having roadmaps available in rest stop would give such unfortunates a chance to correct their position before any significant psychological damage occurs.
Furthermore, Kansas is one of the Fifty States, and thus the legal equal to every other state (at least on paper). So, unlikely as it might seem to you, there are actually people who want items associated with the state of Kansas (only to complete the collection, of course, and not on account of any merit of Kansas itself).
Finally, it’s likely that very few would ever bother to take a roadmap; after all, besides collectors and people prone to getting lost, who would really want one? And while people prone to getting lost are likely to take a map, they’re almost certain to return it at the final rest stop, unopened and in mint condition (since there is no reason to actually look at the map unless unfortunate wrong turn occurred). Other than that, you can rest assured no one would take any maps of Kansas. Even thieves wouldn’t take them, since thieves prefer to take things that have some value. Therefore, supplying maps to rest stops is pretty much just a one time cost, with a tiny upkeep.
In light of these considerations, I would suggest that there is, in fact, some slight demand for Kansas roadmaps, but not enough to bankrupt the state (which is admittedly a rather small number of maps). Therefore, it should be no problem to provide this common service to the people who would use it.
Thank you.
Carl Banks
