Yeah, I know it could drive on dirt roads.

It still goes back to what I was saying. For people like you, they should have had some quick travel option, and for people like me they should have given you control over a much more convincing driving experience.

You already hinted at the problem, which is the current driving experience is boring. Whether it's completely automated or player "assisted". It's an interesting situation. You have a game that's focused on the legend of the classic American road trip created by a culture that largely doesn't view cars in the same was as Americans. I know there's lots of cars in Japan, and plenty of car enthusiasts, but I'm not sure if the people developing this "road trip" motif were really on their game. Statistically, the amount of Japanese spending a long time in cars or going on the classic road trip for vacations has to be far less than larger countries like America or Australia. I think it shows.

They wanted to incorporate large parts of the story telling with the car travel (listening to the radio), yet seemed to water down the entertainment value of the travel pretty badly. When you make a very important aspect of your story telling/gameplay that boring then you know there's a problem.

They should have either created a way for you to get the story telling through other means, or created a more compelling way for people to want to spend time driving in the car to listen to the news reports on the radio.