Narrow highways, especially those on rural mountains, are notorious widow-makers because if there's a mishap, there's nowhere to go but down. According to Dateline NBC, while these highways carry only 1/4 of the nation's vehicles, they are the site of more than half of the country's fatal accidents.
Long, straight interstates like the I-95 in Florida can also be dangerous. Drivers have been lured to their doom by the hypnotic sameness of the landscape, the long, flat stretch of road that seems safe but isn't--if you drift up to 90 miles an hour.
Statistics prove that your mother was right--nothing good ever happens on a highway at night. Forbes.com reports that "the instances of drunk driving, speeding and driving without a safety belt all significantly increase during the night hours and each contributes directly to increased fatality rates."
One highway in California is especially dangerous: I-5. Teens travel this highway to Tijuana, where the legal drinking age is lower. After a night of partying they return, often roaring drunk, and the resulting crashes make this highway a place to avoid. But any section of highway with a high concentration of bars, clubs and liquor stores is a risky drive, especially at night.
Many U.S. interchanges have been dubbed "spaghetti junctions," but few can compete with the intricate Judge Harry Pregerson Interchange in Los Angeles. It is a four-level stack interchange that creates a complicated maze connecting I-105 and I-110. Oh, and it also contains a rail station.
I-15 in Nevada, a road crossing the desert to Las Vegas, is often the scene of fatal accidents. The road itself is flat and should be safe to drive. But with drivers who are in a hurry to get to Vegas, drunk, or simply misjudge their own speed, this road has claimed hundreds of lives.
The James Dalton Highway in Alaska is a gravel road built as a supply route to the Prudhoe Bay oilfields. This highway is considered dangerous because it is mostly traveled by tractor-trailers that generate a wall of dust and mud; because the weather can be dangerous; and because the location is so remote that drivers must bring everything they need before starting out--including extra gasoline.
Any list of dangerous highways must include the appalling Old North Yungas Road in Bolivia--known as "El Camino de la Muerte," or "Road of Death." This narrow dirt track connects La Paz and Coroico through the mountains and each year has caused hundreds of people to plunge to their deaths. It has no guardrails, and its crumbling lip is often further weakened by rain and rock-slides.
Forbes.com adds the Luxor-Hurghada Road in Egypt, calling it simply "a death trap." Various cutthroats haunt this road, lying in wait for passersby. Wary travelers have resorted to speeding along the road at night with their lights turned off, preferring the risk of a fiery head-on collision to the prospect of being murdered by highwaymen.
