The main reason for our mostly unfettered views is the Highway Beautification Act, which celebrated its 45th anniversary on Friday. The act limits advertisements and roadside eyesores along interstate highways, and was a cause championed by then-first lady Lady Bird Johnson, who helped push the law through a contentious 14-hour House session.

It's a law that seeks to take away, rather than to add -- and it's something most of us take for granted, though we shouldn't. As James B. Treece points out in Automotive News, developing countries such as China have no such protection, and many drives in metropolitan areas are chock-full of billboards, obscuring any semblance of a view. In a country as sprawling and diverse -- not to mention car-crazy -- as the U.S., losing out on that would be a real shame. Luckily, and thanks to Lady Bird, we don't have to.