America is filled with dangerous highways and scary roads with hair-raising names like “Dead Man’s Curve,” “Tail of the Dragon,” “Shadow of Death Road” and “Blood Alley.” Any of these roads could be a candidate for the deadliest 10-mile stretch in America. However, they are neither. In fact, this distinction belongs to a longer stretch of highway known for being a so-called death trap.
That’s not to say these roads aren’t deadly, mind you: “Dead Man’s Curve” is located two miles off the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, California, where at least 60 people died between 2010 and 2024. The “Tail of the Dragon” is an 11-mile stretch of U.S. Route 129 with 318 turns that runs along the border of North Carolina and Tennessee. In 2024, the crash was dubbed the scariest drive in America, killing 5 people and injuring 47 others. The fatal crash rate on a one-mile stretch of I-95 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, known as “Cocaine Alley,” is 50 times the average highway mileage. Between 2000 and 2019, 24 people died here, making it the deadliest mile in the country.
However, according to the personal injury attorneys at Elk & Elk, the deadliest 10-mile stretch in the United States is between exits 49B and 60A on Interstate 45, which runs directly through downtown Houston, Texas. In 2023, Elk & Elk partnered with data visualization agency 1Point21 Interactive to analyze 20 years of data across the country. They found that to date, this particular stretch of I-45 has been responsible for 7.7 fatal accidents per year, with the worst being in 2006, when 15 people died.
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America’s Highway to Hell
Aerial shot of Interstate 45 in downtown Houston, Texas. – Hal Bergman/Getty Images
Elk and Elk’s study found that seven of the 10 deadliest 10-mile stretches are in Texas (five in Dallas alone), while the other three are in Florida. During the 20 years analyzed in the study, more than 1,000 fatalities occurred, and the 10 miles of I-45 between exits 49B and 60A in Houston saw 142 crashes and 148 fatalities during that period.
U.S. Interstate 45 starts in Dallas, passes through Houston, and ends in Galveston, with a total length of approximately 286 miles. A 2023 study by insurance agency Budget Direct found that there were 56.5 fatal crashes per 100 miles on the highway. On this 10-mile stretch, 73 people died in 2019, according to KHOU, and the Texas Department of Transportation (via KPRC 2) claims there will be another 105 fatalities in 2023. The stretch of road that stretches south from Houston to Galveston also has a more sinister side, with more than 30 women, mostly between the ages of 10 and 25, mysteriously missing in the area since the incident. 1970s. This led to nicknames such as “America’s Highway to Hell” and “The Killing Fields.”
Houston, knowing how bad it all looks, has been trying to repair the more than 50-year-old highway through the North Houston Highway Improvement Project (NHHIP), which was launched in 2002 and is expected to cost $9 billion. The project will (among other things) expand express lane capacity, reroute it closer to the city center, and accommodate high-occupancy, electric and autonomous vehicles, all with the goal of reducing traffic congestion. However, the project is not expected to be completed until 2038.
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Read the original article on SlashGear.
