# What's the worst/scariest road you've ever been on? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 11, 2017, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348 "2017-08-11T17:47:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348/41 "2017-08-14T19:05:04Z")
There’s a “30-mile graded dirt road” from UT 24, leading to Horseshoe Canyon. IOW, a “powdered sand” road. It’s like driving on ice, with a trough on either side that a car can get stuck in. I never got the speed into double digits. Maneuvering the Road to Hana on Maui doesn’t come close. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348/42 "2017-08-14T19:43:06Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > There’s a “30-mile graded dirt road” from UT 24, leading to Horseshoe Canyon. IOW, a “powdered sand” road. It’s like driving on ice, with a trough on either side that a car can get stuck in. I never got the speed into double digits. > > Maneuvering the Road to Hana on Maui doesn’t come close. This or a nearby route, perhaps? Approx Lat/Long 38.623133, -110.570931 to 38.569229, -110.095058. https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.560332,-110.3329957&z=10&output=embed&dg=ntvb ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348/43 "2017-08-14T20:46:42Z")
US 250 between Hundred and Moundsville in a Dodge Shadow. [Mountain road so twisty](https://www.google.com/maps/@39.8180306,-80.6038127,31345m/data=!3m1!1e3) that we had to pull over to let the dizziness clear. ---
**Author:** ![The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_wind_of_my_soul)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348/44 "2017-08-14T20:52:08Z")
> [@control-z](#): > > Probably a 1-lane gravel road in West Virginia, on one side was a steep cliff going down to a river, on the other side was a steep cliff going up a mountain. No guard rails of course. It wasn’t terrible if you were careful, but if a vehicle came from the opposite direction, there was rarely room for you to pass each other without one person getting their wheels off the cliff towards the river and the other person rubbing their mirrors on the upwards-cliff. Come to think of it, there were plenty of mirrors on the ground. I came here to mention West Virginia. It seems to me that the only way to drive into West Virginia is to go on some steep, windy mountain road without a guard rail. Certainly the only way to get around West Virginia is to drive on narrow roads with steep drop-offs. The scariest time I can remember is when my boyfriend was driving into West Virginia during a snowstorm. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348/45 "2017-08-14T21:25:47Z")
Hardly worth mentioning compared to most in this thread, but I’ve been over [Beartooth Highway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beartooth_Highway) on a motorcycle. And the Nürburgring Nordschleife in a rented Mercedes. Come to think of it, doing 130 on the autobahn was a bit white-knuckle. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348/46 "2017-08-14T21:55:29Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > The Cross Bronx Expressway. Yup. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348/47 "2017-08-14T22:06:21Z")
Probably the scariest was driving over Powerline Pass just out of Anchorage. You can’t drive there now, as it’s a protected area. But when I was a teen, my buddy and I went over it in his '47 Willys military bobtail. He had built a wooden cab on it, so it was top heavy, the breaks weren’t very good, there was about a foot of play in the steering, and the shifter tended to pop out of gear under compression. Yet over we went, climbing up on loose scree to the saddle. One slip and we would have tumbled end over end about 300-400 feet or so to the tarn at the bottom. Coming down the other side, it was steep grades and switchbacks, so I hung on to the shifter while he tried to keep the Jeep on the road, pumping the brakes like a lunatic. Luckily, since we were teens, we were invincible. ---
**Author:** ![Crazy\_Canuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazy_canuck/32/5282_2.png) [@Crazy\_Canuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazy_Canuck)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348/48 "2017-08-14T22:06:56Z")
I spent a few years working in northern BC and the Yukon. I was routinely driving on [ice roads](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_road). Those are exactly what they say on the tin, a road made of frozen water to allow access to remote locations. I hated driving on those things. One day I hit a suicidal moose, and ended up in the ditch. Thankfully, the engine would still run. While I was waiting, I looked through my safety gear. I quickly realized that with only that gear, if I got into an accident bad enough that I couldn’t run the engine, I would freeze to death before help arrived. Since then I’ve been on a few “roads” in the more remote parts of Canada that left me white-knuckled, but nothing that compared to those ice roads. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2017, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348/49 "2017-08-15T00:24:26Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > This or a nearby route, perhaps? Approx Lat/Long 38.623133, -110.570931 to 38.569229, -110.095058. > > [https://www.google.com/maps/dir/38.623133,+-110.570931/38.569229,+-110.095058/@38.560332,-110.3329957,10z/data=!3m1!1e3!4m10!4m9!1m3!2m2!1d-110.570931!2d38.623133!1m3!2m2!1d-110.095058!2d38.569229!3e0](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/38.623133,+-110.570931/38.569229,+-110.095058/@38.560332,-110.3329957,10z/data=!3m1!1e3!4m10!4m9!1m3!2m2!1d-110.570931!2d38.623133!1m3!2m2!1d-110.095058!2d38.569229!3e0) That looks about right. > [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](#): > > The worst roads I’ve been on were in the Hindu Kush, Pakistan. “Roads” [like](http://i.imgur.com/p9QXVJO.jpg?1) [this](http://potdrum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Fairy-Medows.jpg). That second link reminds me of a road I was on, on the island of Martinique. I was totally lost and had no idea where the road went… and hoping I’d get to the other side of the island before it got dark. And yes, the Cross Bronx Expressway. ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2017, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348/50 "2017-08-15T00:28:19Z")
The scariest road that I’ve personally driven was driving around the “head” of Maui aka the West Maui mountains. Two lanes that became one lane, hairpin curves, 300 foot drop on one side and the face of a mountain on the other side. The person on the inner lane at times had to back up a few hundred feet to allow the driver on the side of the mountain to pass. P.S. They’re slowly blowing out the sides of the mountain to create 2 lanes, paving it, and adding guardrails. Scariest that I’ve been a passenger in was driving from Connecticut to Atlantic City, NJ with a seasoned-East Coast driver. Holy mother of god, it was a white knuckle experience. He weaved in and out of lanes going 70mph, and at times was 2 feet from the car in front of him. …Then we have the time back in 1991 when my gf and I drove from NY to DC, and just looked on a map to determine the quickest route, which involved driving through a lovely area called Mt. Pleasant. Let’s just say that my car stuck out like a sore thumb by virtue of having all of its tires intact. The sun had just set, and I felt so unnerved that I treated red lights as optional. A week later, there were riots in that neighborhood where they were overturning cop cars and burning them. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348/51 "2017-08-18T15:29:33Z")
Most recent: A route from DC area to Canaan Valley, WV involves some winding 2-lane roads that go through mountain passes (including the Eastern Continental Divide). Not easy driving but usually not that scary… unless it’s nighttime and the fog is so thick you literally can’t see 10 feet in front of your car. I was driving that way, with another family following me, and it was some white-knuckle stuff. I wound up on the wrong side of the road for a bit - literally could not see the center line. Thank Og there was nobody coming the other way. I was going maybe 10 miles per hour and that was the longest half hour of my life. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2017, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348/52 "2017-09-25T14:18:59Z")
bit of a resurrection here: > [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > I’ll cast my vote for [the roundabout at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France.](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=arc+de+triomphe+roundabout) I drove this about 25 years ago. It’s maybe 8 lanes wide, but it’s hard to say for sure because there are no lane markings. Basically a giant free-for-all. A crash at those speeds wouldn’t have been injurious - but I was driving a rented car, and I knew I’d catch hell from my dad (in the passenger seat) if we got into a wreck. Try going around the Arc de Trimophe on the back of a motorbike. I was a teenager at the time, so it didn’t look cool for a passenger dude to have his arms fully wrapped around a dude rider, so I tried to hold on, down behind my rump, onto what was barely a hand-hold, making it scary as fuck for me to lean into the motorbike’s banking curves in that calamitous zoo of a roundabout, as cars from 12 different roads kept converging in on us on our right. My driver’s jerky weaving around cars almost made me fall off, even as I told him to ease off on that. I would have been so abso-fucking-lutely ran over if I had bailed - no ifs, ands, or buts about it. There were bruises and cuts on the parts of my hands and fingers that were clutching onto the seat behind me. From this [article](https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/read/articles/circling-in-on-paris-arc-de-triomphe): > [@](#): > > My cabbie explains to me, “If there is an accident here, each driver is considered equally at fault. This is the only place in Paris where the accidents are not judged. No matter what the circumstances, insurance companies split the costs fifty-fifty. In Paris, a good driver gets only scratches, not dents.” For the kind of hazard the OP is looking for - on our '97 summer tour my old band Soy drove along the [Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yex8TS8v-xw). While not Bolivia’s old Road of Death, there were long stretches of this where if we went off the road, we’d have been toast. With my severe vertigo/agoraphobia, just typing this makes me think (and just a little woozily) of the vast open space of that area, and how I tried to just concentrate on the side of the mountain, and not look out. Totally white-knuckled, heart-beating stuff for this wuss. And thank-you, _ **Slow Moving Vehicle** _, for contributing to this thread. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2017, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348/53 "2017-09-25T14:28:15Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > That sounds like what the locals call The Rattlesnake, which goes from the Snake River at the Lewiston-Clarkston area over the mountains into Oregon. I drove it in a 27’ RV and left finger indentations on the steering wheel. Switchbacks, drop-offs, no guard rails and no shoulders. Wrong end of the OR-ID border. ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2017, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348/54 "2017-09-25T16:23:25Z")
US Route 67 through the Ozark Mountains in southern Missouri was the scariest for me. It wasn’t really that challenging, but I’m not accustomed to driving at night through mountains on a two-lane road. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2017, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348/55 "2017-09-25T17:16:52Z")
I think I was either in Grants Pass Oregon or Roseburg, I was going to a place called Glide and I noticed shortcut through the mountains on my map. It nocked about 80 miles off of the trip. I seriously considered abandoning my car about 1/2 way through. It wasn’t a road but a mere jeep trail and I was driving a large camper. I think it took me over 4 hours to go about 12 miles so it did not save any time. It might have even been on a different vacation somewhere else but it was bad. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2017, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348/56 "2017-09-25T17:43:20Z")
> [@Eddie The Horrible](#): > > For the kind of hazard the OP is looking for - on our '97 summer tour my old band Soy drove along the [Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yex8TS8v-xw). While not Bolivia’s old Road of Death, there were long stretches of this where if we went off the road, we’d have been toast. That is a GREAT road! Rode my motorcycle back and forth about 8 times when I was there, including once just after it opened for the day, so there was almost nobody on it. Needless to say, the speed limit was ignored. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2017, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348/57 "2017-09-25T22:39:34Z")
All, all of them, places I would rather traverse in an airplane at 2500 ft AGL. In 1980, just a few weeks after the Mt. St. Helens blow-up, I did in fact get to fly nearly right over it, on a commercial flight from Bay Area to Seattle. The pilot dropped the right wing so we could all get a good look out the windows right into the crater – it was still smoking. The ground was solid gray for miles around, and festooned with fallen trees that looked like piles of monochrome Pick-Up Sticks. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2017, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348/58 "2017-09-25T23:13:53Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I think I was either in Grants Pass Oregon or Roseburg, I was going to a place called Glide and I noticed shortcut through the mountains on my map.… There is a road a tad further south that is notorious for eating people (Bear Camp Road). Somewhere down in the area, I heard of a woman who grew tired of watching body bags going by so she put up a sign that said something like “Turn Around or You Will Get Lost & Die” and got in a fight with the BLM over having it there. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2017, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348/59 "2017-09-25T23:58:58Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > There is a road a tad further south that is notorious for eating people (Bear Camp Road). Somewhere down in the area, I heard of a woman who grew tired of watching body bags going by so she put up a sign that said something like “Turn Around or You Will Get Lost & Die” and got in a fight with the BLM over having it there. I have family down that way so I’m taking interest, but am not familiar with most of the back roads. For that particular road, the [official name](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bear+Camp+Rd,+Oregon/@42.6032181,-123.7928201,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x54c510d1e13aa51d:0xbbfc713c40f52d74!8m2!3d42.6032142!4d-123.7906314) in Google Maps (so sic) is: “Bear Camp Rd (Closed Nov - Jun)” ! ETA: the 3D satellite map is kind of fun. ---
**Author:** ![Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brown_eyed_girl/32/3574_2.png) [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2017, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348/60 "2017-09-26T00:19:01Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > As far as paved “real” roads go, there’s one in SW Idaho near the Oregon border an uncle took me on years ago. Very narrow, twisty, built high on a canyon wall. A solid wall on one side and an amazing drop off on the other. Guardrails? Forget those! > > Of course people “straightened out” the curves by driving over the line. Without a good sight line of course. > > Fortunately not many vehicles. But several of those were dump trucks. Ooooh. > > My uncle stopped and showed us a car wreck (one of several you could see) deep down in the canyon. That was where a friend of my uncle and a girl died. When a car went off that cliff, it stayed there. Near the Nevada border in SE Oregon, not far from where you were, is a stretch of OR 140 that is narrow, winding two-lane with no guardrail and, IIRC, a 7 or 8% grade. Not so bad in a passenger vehicle, but in a 22-foot Penske towing a car carrier it was quite exhilarating. My white-knuckled sweetheart vehemently disagrees, though. > [@Gatopescado](#): > > The worst “real” road I’ve been on was 211 on the California coast that takes you to Mattole Beach and Petrolia. Really bad potholes, narrow, winding doesn’t even describe it. You’d have to see it to believe it. I was driving a big old camper! I just made this drive a couple of weekends ago. We were warned in Petrolia to watch out for the locals in their pickups flying down the road disregarding the lanes. While it was full of potholes, down to single lane in spots where the road had fallen off the side of the hill, windy, narrow, and sometimes unpaved, I didn’t think it was as bad as they made it out to be. Yes, the locals are nuts, but in a coupe at a reasonable speed, it was an absolutely beautiful drive and not scary at all. Can’t wait to go back, but yeah they could fix the potholes. > [@The\_Vorlon](#): > > Hanna Highway, Maui. > > Drop off on one side. granite on the other, two lanes, maybe, wide, and helllo bus! Quite! You have my vote. It’s the traffic that makes it scary. > [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I think I was either in Grants Pass Oregon or Roseburg, I was going to a place called Glide and I noticed shortcut through the mountains on my map. It nocked about 80 miles off of the trip. I seriously considered abandoning my car about 1/2 way through. It wasn’t a road but a mere jeep trail and I was driving a large camper. I think it took me over 4 hours to go about 12 miles so it did not save any time. It might have even been on a different vacation somewhere else but it was bad. Sounds like you were on some BLM logging road, of which there are many in this part of Oregon and yes, they are scary for me too! They are frequently very narrow, unpaved, rutted with large rocks and boulders on or adjacent to the road and quite a bit of exposure. I don’t like driving on these at all, but the views… and they’re really necessary to get to all the good trailheads. God help you, though, if there are logging ops on the road. Those logging trucks going downhill do not stop on a dime, nor do those drivers ever swerve. They know better. BTW, Glide is only 16 miles from Roseburg. Either approach from Roseburg (via North Bank Rd on the Umpqua) or Grants Pass (via I-5 & OR 138) is relatively mild: flat, two-lane divided and paved. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-scariest-road-youve-ever-been-on/793348.md?page=4)