Most dangerous US highway is I-45 in Houston

I'm surprised the 15 between LA and Vegas was so far down on the list. I grew up in LA and have spent way too much time in Vegas. I can't tell you how many wrecks I've seen over the years.

I've driven it and lived!

But I hated the Texas freeway system, with their on-ramp speed limits and weird system of frontage roads that are the only way to where you're going, and nothing to tell you when to leave the freeway and take the frontage road.

I learned to drive in the U.K. and still remember the first time I drove in the US. All by myself at 20 in a small Mitsubishi rental car in LA. Talk about baptism by fire but it was nothing to my first trip to Texas 2 years ago. I was shitting a brick on I-45. Texan drivers are terrifying. Even on backroads they will ride your bumper in giant pick ups. So I co-sign that list.

And my 2c is that Americans are the nicest, friendliest people I have met on my travels. Only Peruvians come close for willingness to chat to strangers but once you get behind the wheel of a car you guys become animals! If I was put in charge of the DMV the first change I would make is everyone would have to take a defensive driving course. It is the number one problem on US roads. People just don’t read the road ahead and adjust accordingly, people barge on ahead at full speed and then honk, scream, give the finger or have a spastic fit flailing about ranting when they have a near miss. Everyday I see people going full speed down a street that has cars parked both sides and 2 minor roads trying to pull out and join who of course cannot see with the cars blocking their view so they edge out. Now you’d think car peeping out behind parked cars trying to get a view, one should slow down and expect them to possibly pull out. Nope everyone keeps on and I’ve lost count of the accidents I’ve seen. Brake lights start coming on up ahead on a freeway? Nobody slows and if I do some idiot behind honks. Then when it is too late they brake and end up in a pile up. You have to expect that everyone else is an idiot and REACT. Still hate driving over here with a passion.

I'm surprised that US 17 or the King's Highway in SC is on the list. I've driven it plenty of times with no problems. In fact, it is one of my favorite drives.

I've driven 9 of those roads and lived to tell the tale!

I feel so BUTCH!!!

45? Seriously? Are you a total pussy, OP? Try driving a Fiat microcar along the side of a cliff on the Amalfi Coast if you want to see *actual* scary driving. (And btw I used to live in Houston & drive down 45 all the time. I have no idea why it's on this list.)

Could it be before you’re used to Houston and not the Amalfi coast? Amalfi coast didn’t bother me nor did the road to hana because I’m used to narrow one lane roads and learned to drive on them but I-45 along with some other US freeways near cities scare the living shit out of me.

Pacific Coast Highway 1 along Big Sur can be a fright -- fog, curvy road, steep drop-offs.

Another once-respectable publication that's been reduced to sensationalistic headlines, vapid listicles, and clickbait. I guess they have to cater to the average brain-dead American.

I-45 going north to The Woodlands had a few terrifying spots years ago. For some reason, the lanes dwindled down to two, and over a small bridge.

In the late 1990’s, a group of young women were killed on the bridge when a speeding oil tanker truck crashed into the side, and burst into flames. The teenagers were trapped and burned to death. They were on their way to Galveston for a day over Spring Break. Their moms were traveling in a separate car behind them, unhurt. It was one of those terrible, random accidents that stuck with me over the years.

Soon after that, the plans were drawn up to redo and expand the highway in that section.

I can't believe Highway 17 from Santa Cruz isn't on this list. I nearly died many times on that road. Terrifying.

People driving pickups in Houston are fucking nuts. Drive like maniacs, on the freeways, in neighborhoods, everywhere. And there are fucking TONS of pickups in this city.

"I can't believe Highway 17 from Santa Cruz isn't on this list."

Agreed, I HATED that road when I lived in the Bay Area, the lanes are too narrow and the curves are too sharp for the normal flow of California traffic, plus there's those concrete barriers in the middle. Driving in the left lane on that highway was gut-wrenching, with the narrow lanes and high speeds I always felt I was one inch away from striking the cement and spinning out of control to my death. If I was on my way to that part of the coast I'd rather go through Half Moon Bay, even if it was a long way out of the way,

But apparently this article is a roundup of accident-per-mile statistics, and I guess Hwy 17 didn't make the cut. I presume it's #26.

I know OP specified highways, but there sure are a lot of scary BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and US Forest Service roads.

Bear Camp Road in Oregon -- where the ill-fated James Kim and his family got lost in snow -- has claimed lives and many people have gotten lost up there. Remote, winding, and disorienting.

[quote] I have no idea why it's on this list.

Because it has the most deaths per mile of any road in the US.

This thread was prompted by this report in the news yesterday.

I-45 is a surprise. Wide lanes Texas-style - nothing compared to Northeast. The only explanation is Texas drivers who never learn to share the road because they are so used to wide open empty roads. Actually having to deal with vaguely urban traffic is something they never learned.

Assume the same is true for South Carolina. Ignorant drivers who drive like they are the only ones on the road - because that’s what they are used to.

R12 I'd flat-out argue that drivers of pick-ups are THE WORST drivers anywhere.

I live off the I-45 near downtown Houston and avoid it within the city. There's always an accident due to the quick uphill towards the elevated portion of the freeway that hugs downtown. The state is trying to reroute it but would have to knock down a chunk of a revitalized/ gentrified EaDo, including businesses, condos, homeless shelters.

Have been in the front passenger seat on the Amalfi Drive (r6), Pacific Coast Highway 1 to Big Sur (r8), a 10-lane ( only 6 paved) highway in Thessaloniki, and unpaved roads in the former Yugoslavia.

The absolute scariest drive for me was the route in France between Besancon and somewhere south, probably Lyon, but I can't recall. White-knuckle, with no-barrier mountain drop-offs to the right. No, thank you!

Many in the south due to blinding rainstorms. Fog also. I have driven 24 between Ft. Wayne and Toledo once when I had not slept and I felt like I was going to die every minute.

Agree with R20 - but farther south along Cote D’Azur. Even Princess Grace - who drove those roads regularly - drove off the cliffs. No barriers, no attempt at safety. Pure terror. Makes PCH in Big Sur seem like a walk in the park.

Maybe before you are allowed to drive a car/truck, you should be required to spend two years riding a 125cc motorbike where death comes at you from all sides.

[quote]I-45 is a surprise. Wide lanes Texas-style - nothing compared to Northeast. The only explanation is Texas drivers who never learn to share the road because they are so used to wide open empty roads. Actually having to deal with vaguely urban traffic is something they never learned.

I'll just hazard a guess you've never been to Houston, which during non-Covid times has traffic levels on par with L.A., if not NYC literally (but only b/c it has literal hundreds of miles of expressways). Its traffic is more than "vaguely urban" – and I say that having formerly lived in NYC & D.C. as well as Houston. Are you even aware Houston has a "real" downtown? With three light rail lines and a vibrant arts district? (Having lots of local billionaires helps quite a bit there.) Or that the Texas Medical Center a couple miles south of it is the largest medical campus in the WORLD, including the MD Anderson Cancer Institute with international renown?

The shootout in R16's link – one that apparently started on 45 and continued after they exited onto the North Loop (a.k.a. I-610, the first of Houston's three circular routes encompassing its suburbs – is disturbing, to state the obvious, but also not even remotely the norm.

There are a number of potential explanations for why 45 tops the list, and as such your assertion – "the only explanation is Texas drivers who never learn to share the road because they are so used to wide open empty roads" – is absurd, considering the fatalities are concentrated in the nation's fourth-largest city. Might I suggest actually visiting Texas sometime, to dispel any quaint notions you might have about us having nothing but cattle & oil?

It's more than that. Texas makes you change lanes all the time to keep going.

Houston traffic is worse than LA imo.

285 in Atlanta, but no 20? Preposterous.

[quote] The shootout in [R16]'s link – one that apparently started on 45 and continued after they exited onto the North Loop (a.k.a. I-610, the first of Houston's three circular routes encompassing its suburbs – is disturbing, to state the obvious, but also not even remotely the norm.

There were at least two road rage shootings in Houston in October and at least two in September. It IS the norm.

America's decades-long neglect of its infrastructure leads to situations like this. If you KNOW a highway is unsafe, what's stopping the government agencies responsible from building a better one, other than incompetence and cynicism?

The Southern State Parkway on Long Island. It was built when the top speed a car could.reach was 35 mph. Back when cars first became common, people would go for a Sunday drive. The parkway system landscape was made pretty for this purpose — tree lined, winding, curvy, leading to the farms and beaches. But now it’s a high speed highway & people who are unfamiliar with it — or are blind drunk, like an FDNY guy just the other day — are constantly going in the wrong direction on the the parkway, or fly off the roadway.

I'm surprised U.S. 95 in Nevada doesn't have enough statistics to make the list. It's the main road between Las Vegas and Reno and it's inadequate. Much of it is only one lane in each direction, for hundreds of miles. Many slow trucks and passing them is risky. I hate driving it but I gave to from time to time. It's supposed to be replaced by Interstate 11, but that is decades away.

The Taconic ain't great.

Another problem with driving in the Houston area is the sheer number of 18 wheelers that share the road. Certainly makes things worse during rush hours.

Actually R24, I spent almost 2 years in Houston - so I do know Houston. And it is for the most part “vaguely urban”. Its like Rhode Island deciding to call itself a city - just because it’s big doesn’t mean it’s urban. I actually like Houston. But it’s absurd to compare it to LA or NYC as a big city. The majority of people in Houston live in housing developments with cul de sacs off wide roads. One of the only truly dense driving areas is I-45 which is the reason I believe it’s dangerous. People from the low density metro area - aka, Houston - suddenly find themselves packed into high density traffic in the city core. Combined with the high volume traffic just passing through Houston from the even less dense outlying areas, I-45 is a bunch of drivers who aren’t used to driving in high density roads on a regular basis.

Georgia 400 would be up there is they could ever get the traffic moving again!

r34 your theory doesn't make any sense. Commuters use I-45 on a daily basis. It's not like it's a road used by yokels on their annual big trip to the city. And only the inner loop is high density. It's dangerous because you've got idiots in big trucks who don't slow down ever, aggressive drivers who carry guns, and lots of drunk driving. The most dangerous intersections in Texas aren't in "high density" areas-- quite the opposite.