The Badlands

Rule number one, kid. Don't go into the Badlands. And if you have to, you definitely want to make sure you've got Nomads on your side for the trip. They'll not only be able to provide essential transport, as long as you have the eddies of course, they'll also be able to guide you on your way, a precious commodity when attempting to traverse the desert that makes up the landscape around Night City.
There's a reason the city has been prioritising sea- and sky-travel over the few roads that are left. Deserts just generally don't make for good gathering places, and that's what most of the Northern Californian landscape outside of the city zones qualify as these days after multiple wars and a world-wide collapsed redecorated the globe. What makes the Night City Badlands a particularly nasty place to be avoided, is not just the daily dust storms and huge areas of radiation no one's been able to clean up that you're guaranteed to stumble upon. Minefields, Nomads of the less-friendly and definitely-cannot-be-bought variety (think Raffen Shiv and worse), small sects of crazies armed to the teeth wanting to be left in peace, secret labs, whatever the hell all that fallout's done to the local wildlife, car races to the death as well as shootouts between rivalling roadgangers, frequent Militech outings, and so much more, all means dehydration and sunburn is probably the smallest problem you can expect to encounter out here. So yeah, making friendly with a pack and renting a driver for the day is a damn necessity. Don't be a tight screwhead on this, or you won't have time to regret it.
Every now and again, the Night City council will remember the Badlands, and attempt to do something about it. Whether it's thinking they can restore the roads, finally get that secure highway built, or finally clean up the mess left behind by all the wars, get some life back into the dunes, it's yet to pan out.