The World's Most Dangerous Roads

As two avid road trippers, Ben and Scott have seen their fair share of hairpin turns and potholes -- but that's nothing compared to the nerve-shattering curves of the world's most dangerous roads. Learn more in this podcast.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Go behind the wheel and under the hood on everything
automotive with high speed stuff from how stuff works dot com.
Hi everybody, and welcome back to the podcast. I'm Scott Benjamin,
the auto editor at how stuff works dot com and
I'm here with Ben Bowl And how you doing Ben?
I'm always doing well, man. As our producer said, well,

(00:23):
let us proceed to rock. Here we go. Um, if
we're gonna rock, let's just get right into it. Then
I say, what we're up to. We're gonna talk about
today the world's most dangerous roads, which I think is
pretty awesome. I mean, because I mean I've got an
idea of what a dangerous road is. I've been on
roads that I consider dangerous, mountain roads that are you know,

(00:44):
gravel and uh maybe you know high altitude with a
cliff next to them or something. But I'll tell you
every road that I've ever been on, compared to the
ones that i'm seeing here, pretty meek, actually really meek
compared to what I hear. Um, either they're the conditions
of the road, the the physical conditions of the road,
or kind of what happens around the road. Um, And

(01:06):
we'll discuss that a little bit. But there's some there's
some pretty dangerous situations you can get into on you know.
I guess you know, Rosie shouldn't travel on really right
the road that's better left untraveled. No, it's interesting that
we're uh, we're a show based in the United States
and we're talking about the world's most dangerous roads because
you know, for a long time, the interstate system has

(01:27):
really given us a great deal. You know, we can
we live in a country where we can drive from
one coast to the other and probably not take some
of the enormous risk that people driving on the world's
most dangerous roads. We might not even have to go
on a gravel road to do that. I don't think
we would. I don't think we would know. I think
it's paved pretty sure you don't have to. Yeah, so

(01:47):
I guess um real quick will go in. Maybe we
can define, uh, we can define this for our listeners.
When we say road, we mean something that people would
take a car on every day, not not need crazy
hiking trailer path, although there are some very dangerous paths,
of course, but we're talking about stuff that believe it

(02:08):
or not, and you might not believe it once you
see the photos. These are roads that people drive to
work on, that children go to school on if they
make it. But you know what, if they make it
is key because a lot of these roads, you'll find
they're very very small roads, a lot of them in
many cases summer really long. But we'll talk about some
real small roads that have surprising death rates uh per year.

(02:31):
You know, we we'll find hundreds of deaths per year
on some of these roads and you know they may
only be thirty or forty miles long at the most,
so you know, shocking death rates, I guess is the
best better way to put it. Um. But that that
goes to show you that, you know, there's there's something
inherently danger dangerous about this road. Either it's the the
weather conditions, the just where the road is built itself,

(02:54):
the surroundings, the people that you know are around the road,
and the customs and the you know, the um crime
crime I guess would be a big one, really. Um.
There's just a lot of different reasons why these roads
are listed as you know, the world's most dangerous roads,
and you'll find lists like this all over the internet.
In fact, we just you know, gathered a bunch of

(03:14):
the most dangerous, and we're gonna talk about a few
of them. We won't hit all of them. We're not
going to count down from you know, ten to number one.
But there is one that consistently came up as number
one on the world's Most Dangerous Roads. Well, we'll get
to that at the end because, UM, I guess really
we need to kind of define what we're talking. We

(03:34):
kind of are starting that already yet. But um, the
roads that we we think of as dangerous, you know,
we we had that discussion when we talked about Pike's Peak, Um,
just a while back. It wasn't that long ago, and
there was a turn, a particular turn called the bottoms pit,
the bottom is pit. Is I think we said it
was right, I got I think it was about a

(03:54):
thousand maybe a little less, but still you're talking about
a long drop. Um. Kind of it's difficult to it's
difficult to go off at the bottomst pit. Really, you
would have to either be out of control, you know,
vehicle that would have to have lost its breaks. The
roadway is well marked. Um. There was a case recently
of someone who drove off of it intentionally. Um, But

(04:16):
they have that race there every year and no one's
no one's ever you know, crashed off at the bottoms
pit corner during the race. UM, I don't know. It
seems like you know, I'm sure that's dangerous, but it's
easily avoidable in this In this case, we're talking about
roads where like you said, they have to go from
the village to maybe the capital of the city and

(04:37):
the capital city of the region, and this is the
only way to get there, or it was the only
way up until certain points. So, UM, I don't know.
It's it comes down to, you know, the road that
you have to travel, really, um, And this is this
is very much a this is very much a pertinent concern.
You know, this is very relevant to people. UM. I've

(05:00):
some numbers, Scott, if you want to hear some numbers,
do you, Okay, all right, so tell me what you
think about this. Um. According to the Association for Safe
International Road Travel, over one million people dying road crashes
each year. One million. Let's break that down to people
a day. Right. Wait, wait, I've never heard this every

(05:25):
single day. It's a big world. But also these are
you know, we have to consider that of these road
crash fatalities are in developing countries and they have a
lot There are a lot of factors in developing country
like we're talking about that tend to make driving more dangerous.
But another thing, I've got two more crazy ones and
then will move on, right, okay. Uh the leading cause

(05:48):
of death for men ages fifteen to forty four worldwide
road crashes. Wow, which is that? That's the lead there's
the number one cause. That's yes. Now, of course this
is a statistic for the Association for Safe International Road Travel.
So I've had something to do with testosterone, and uh,
you know, I could drive a little faster. I think

(06:09):
that's it. I think that's a that's a very that's
a very distinct possibility. Is probably there's probably a factor
in you know, well, in a lot of countries, men
are are the primary drivers. We've talked about that as well.
And here's here's the last one. And this just blows
my mind, scott Um. The this organization estimates that the

(06:30):
cost of road crashes the cost of developing countries is
approximately sixty billion dollars and that's about twice the amount
of money they receive in developmental assistance. So think of
how much money we could save if we can make
these roads safe. He said, sixty billion with a B
billion with a B. Wow, that that's unbelievable. And now
but I was just blown up. I'll tell you the

(06:51):
one out of that that shocked me the most is
the one million people a year. That's yeah, that's very
very very important. How many of the day was saying, again,
fatal or fatalities on the road every day. That's amazing.
Now when when you look at these some of these
roads though that we're talking about, I guess you can
see where you know, and I've heard stories of these

(07:14):
on these roads, reading these stories, um saying that you know,
there may be a bus load of people that have
one hundred people in the bus that go over a
cliff at one time. Um, so I can understand how
the number of climbs. But uh, and that's just one accident,
you know that hasn't happened in a while, and that
was in a certain region. We'll talk about it later.
But um, I can understand that. You know, when you
get public transportation that's packed like that and then something happens,

(07:36):
I can imagine that it's it's tremendous loss. Well, can
I let me let me ask you. You you know,
you know a lot about cars, you know a lot
about all the automotive related stuff. I was wondering if
you could break down for me a couple of the
more infamous or notorious dangerous roads and maybe, if it's cool,
maybe why these places are so much more dangerous. Well,

(08:00):
we've got a few, We've got UM. Now, there's a
lot of top ten lists out there, okay, and there
are no order at all, but UM Forbes had a
good list. I think there was another one from I
forget the name of It was like most Amazing Facts
or something like that. It was just random sites, but
they all seem together. This list from UM, that organization

(08:21):
that you had mentioned, UM, the Association for Safe International
Road Travel. That's kind of the organization organization that puts
out these main lists that say here are the most
dangerous in the world and based on our figures. UM,
let's just start out with one in UM in Egypt,
there's a scuba diving resort along the Red Sea. That's
UM it to get there between UM the city of

(08:44):
Luxe or and there you go. I am probably butchering
that that's better than I would ever do. Thank you
for step. You can step in at any point in
any of these names, by the way, because every one
of them I will have trouble with it. I will
take the fall from mr Nel cities. This is crazy,
but it says at night driver's speed across the dusty
desert with their headlights off, setting stage for head on collisions.

(09:08):
The reason is because it's more dangerous to drive with
your headlights on. And you would say why why, Yeah,
the reason is because the bandits are the you know,
the um people that want to well, you know, pull
you over the sidetrack your car, take take all your money,
possibly murder you, you know, etcetera. There's there's a lot
of bad, bad things going on out there in the

(09:30):
desert apparently, so it's yeah. They said that terrorists patrol
the highways between the between these two cities. They call
them bandits or the reason like the bad land areas,
I guess, and um they say that, you know, yeah,
it's much safer to drive with your headlights off at night.
That's remarkable, blows me away, But they said that it
just sets this perfect stage for head on collisions in

(09:52):
that region. That sounds to me as though it means
that your chances of having an excellent head on collision
are lower. The chance of a fatality due to a
collision are lower than the chances of a fatality due
to driving with your headlights on. That's what they're saying. Yeah,
I it's hard to believe. But if the area is
that dangerous, yeah, I gotta tell you, I wouldn't be

(10:14):
crossing it at night. That's a you know what, that's
a good point. Yeah, that's a good point. I I
love resorts, and I love the ocean and everything about it,
but I don't think I could. Uh. I don't think
I would drive in there for a chance to scuba
dive in the Red Sea. You wouldn't he wouldn't risk
death and uh and destruction, I guess. I mean I

(10:35):
wouldn't risk it at nights. Gut me either, I wouldn't,
you know what. I think During the day, I would
even avoid that area. It seems like, I mean, that's
probably probably not accurate, but it's much more safe during
the day. But um, so that road, that road is
dangerous than more due to crime, correct, Yeah, that's that's
one of the crime regions or reasons, I guess. Um.

(10:56):
Another one which is called the world's longest motor old road. Um.
That's according to again us is um in the Costa
Rica region. This is now, this is the Pan American
Highway that runs thirty thousand miles from this Alaska to Patagonia.
Right you know this, yep a you know? Sorry, this
is uh. The reason that it's it's dangerous is because um,

(11:18):
to avoid construction projects in the rainforest. Okay, they avoid,
They put a halt to construction projects and things that
are happening in the region, and there's a lot of
mud slides and the road gets washed out and there's
just a lot of dangerous areas due to that. Of course.
Really okay, so lack of construction. Yeah, that's right, it's
I guess the part that goes through Costa Rica is

(11:40):
particularly the most dangerous. Oh it's Scott, hang on if
if I'm correct, I think you're referring to the infamous
little stretch of road there between sin Isidoro and Cartago or.
I probably butchered that and I'm so sorry. I need
to apologize to my Spanish teachers. Um. It's also known
as the hill of Death, and I would say the

(12:02):
hill of death that sounds tera why would you ever
drive on a road that's called the hill of it
has anything on it that's called the hill of death. Well,
you know, I think when a lot of people hop
on the road, they're thinking of it as the Pan
American Highway. They learn about the Hill of Death, probably
don't call it the hill of death. But yeah, I
can understand where that would be trouble um. And okay,

(12:22):
I got another one here on the list in China.
The danger as other people, it says, and I believe
that the popular it just merely having that volume of
people on the door. And they said that car accidents
in the past twenty years of climbed to three point
nine to seven point six per one thousand of the population. Um,
that's number of deaths rather caused by cars. Yeah, it is.

(12:45):
And they said that the volume of cars in the
road has increased ninefold. But get this, the number of
motorcycles to jump by a factor of fifty four. By
a factor of fifty four. Now, I'm no math major,
but it sounds like an awful lot of motorcycles to me.
That is that. You know, I've seen the I've seen
videos of intersections and you know, stretches of highway where

(13:06):
it's nothing but motorcycles. I've seen this in India as
well again video and net spend scooters and motor scooters
and motorcycles and two wheel vehicles that carry entire families, um,
very dangerous. Yeah, or used as cargo vehicles. And here's
a crazy statistic. They said that there were eighty two
thousand deaths road deaths in two thousand, six d two thousand,

(13:28):
two thousand, eight two thousand in China. Wow, that's in
just one year. That's that's that's a pretty big portion
of that one million that you had mentioned earlier, um
nearly ten percent, so um shocking number. I had heard
that the worst part of that area was the six
one to bet hotway in the which is supposed to

(13:50):
be up in the Himalayas. I'm going to scramble through
my notes because I'm sure it's on here somewhere, but
going oh here it is. Go ahead? Is that is
that right? Yeah? I mean I've got there so many
of these ben I mean, you'll hear us reading and
scrambling through this, but there are so many of these
roads that, um, you know, you've got little bits of information.
I got a little bit of information. Trying to gather
all these was was remarkably it was difficult. Yeah, go ahead, please,

(14:14):
Well we should tell our listeners, Um, guys, we're not
going to get to all the dangerous roads because there
there are quite a few. Um, and you know, we
don't wanna we don't want to say that we're only
giving the highlights or our favorites, because we don't want
to think of dangerous roads as our favorites and highlights. Um.
But it's these are amazing places. And in China, if

(14:34):
you are in China and you are driving, the part
of the Chinese roadways you want to look out for
is sich one to that highway again? Uh, this place
is You know how you see those warning signs when
you're up in the Appalachians say caution falling rocks. Well
those are common, not the signs. The event is common
on this highway. So if you're driving on this highway,

(14:56):
you need to watch out for landslides and rock avalanches
and and but there's a real, real concern about this
that it happens often, right, because I see those signs
all the time. I may see a couple of you know,
remnants of a rock slide that happened in years past. Maybe, um,
not common at all, really, I would think, Um, but
you're saying that, you know, it's kind of a daily thing,

(15:17):
or if I don't know more than that it is common,
it's not surprising. And of course, as you pointed out earlier,
the most dangerous part is just how dealing with the
density of drivers and motorcyclists on the sense any roadway
makes sense, more vehicles, you have to deal with them more. Um,

(15:37):
you know, prone it is to accidents. I suppose. Um,
let's move to the UK. Let's move to the Kingdom. No,
not not really moved there. Let's talk about it, right
if you want to move there, you can't A forty four.
A forty four is a stretch of highway that runs
from Oxford too. And I'm gonna mess this name up
aber Swyth. I thought that was pretty good. That's close. Well,

(16:00):
what you can tell the people are listeners in the
UK if it sounds like Scott messed it up, it's
our American accents, that's right, that's my Southern American accents, right, um,
even though I'm from never never Mind. Yeah. Anyways, this
this two right, two lane road has enough fatalities and
serious injuries injury accidents that the government has installed surveillance

(16:22):
cameras in order to monitor speeding and collisions so they
can send out you know, not repair but recovery vehicles.
I guess they said that on the stretch of road,
more than twenty percent of the crashes are head on collisions.
More than of the collisions are head on. That's I know,
that's very very wide eyes, but yeah, that's unbelievable when

(16:44):
you think about it. And that's two lane road of course,
so you know that's dangerous right there. To begin with,
speeds must be incredibly high because you know there's this
h there's got to be immediate just this government surveillance
that's going on here because they know there's something happening
there that it's Dane risks um. Anyways, I would think that,
you know, some of these are some pretty horrible accidents, especially,

(17:05):
you know, just to make the list, it's got to
be bad, yeah, because these are definitely the worst of
the worst. You have you have any more here, because
if I want to hear the ones you have, I've
got a few. I mean, I don't want to go
through all of these because a lot of them. You know,
I'll tell you that. I tell you've been a lot
of these just have a lot of m mountain passes,
a lot of switchbacks, a lot of terrain that's uncertain,

(17:28):
a lot of washed out roads that we're talking about,
you know, up in the mountains that um, you know,
maybe no one can repair right away, and the next
person that happens along that, you know, they go right
down with the road. Um. And then a lot of
these places are in with the exception of the UK,
a lot of these roads are in places where the
average automobile may not be in the best condition. Correct. Yeah,

(17:48):
that that could happen as well. And then you've got busses,
and you've got um, you know, overpacked buses to begin with, um,
you know that are a little bit well not a
little bit, but a lot top heavy. Um. Just dangerous,
dangerous situations all around. And not only that, imagine these
tiny little mountain passes where you've got um, you know,

(18:09):
big diesel trucks that are carrying cargo trying to pass
a bus that's carrying um, you know, I don't know
one hundred people. Let's say to and from you know,
the capital and the small city. Um, and they're trying
to pass on the road that's barely wide enough for
a car really, I mean what we would consider one lane,
it's like three. Yeah, that's right, and they consider it.

(18:29):
You know, they can pass a bus and a a
cargo vehicle there on the same on the same pass.
You know, tires are barely on the edge, just ready
to slip over. So hazardous, I'll give you. I think
we're about ready to go to our numero UNU. Right,
oh yeah, I think they are. Alright, Well lay it
on me, man, All right, there's another one i'll mess

(18:51):
the name up on. It's in Bolivia. It's called the
North Youngest Road. Yeah are you? Are you talking about
the one built by a prisoners of war from Paraguay
back in the thirties. Doesn't that sound just menacing? That
that right there sounds uh. It makes it sound like
a haunted road or something like that. Is this the
same road where drivers stopped the poor beer on the ground,

(19:14):
the sieging a local goddess for safe passage? You know what,
You're exactly right. This is the road that it's only
forty miles long, like we've said, and the annual death
toll each year is well over one hundred people on
this forty mile stretch of road, and some estimates are
saying two hundred to three hundred. Um, I've seen that
in a few different places, not all it's reported. Yeah,

(19:37):
that's that's some of it, and the other is that
you know some some years there's a lot more. This
is the average annual two three hundredth a year. One
hundred is pretty much the known amount that happens there
every year. Now I will say this that there and
which I susually say where it is. It leads from
LAPAs to Karoiko. I think it's say at Ceo r

(20:00):
O I c O, which is Bolivious capital. I don't
know how to say that that that capital city. I'm sorry,
but um, there is now a new road. Um that
is that has taken its place, and it took twenty
years to build. So that will give you an idea
of how uh difficult this terrain as you're talking about
the Bolivian Andes mountains, and I guess it's it's it's

(20:23):
a much more. Um, I don't know, it's a safer road.
It's got you know that it's it's paved and it's
as yeah, yeah, that's right. It's a bypass, but it
totally bypasses this road that you know, So you don't
have to take this road if you don't want to.
I don't know why some people still do, but they do. Um,
apparently the only people that are really using it now occasionally,
you know, there's occasional freight that goes back and forth,

(20:44):
which is ridiculously dangerous. But um, a lot of tourists
will take this road just to say that they've been
on the world's most dangerous road, which is ridiculous. But
a lot of people bike on this road as well,
and that also extremely dangerous because you know, well, you know, yeah,
I think maybe a bike would be a little bit safer.
I don't know. Then, you know, this is one thing.

(21:06):
You might get run off the road by a bus
or because I've read story and I'll like before you
get back. But um, I read a journalist account of
traveling on this road and they were in a cab
or something like that would be driven possibly a bus,
and they said that there were impatient people behind them
were passing on this road. And if you've seen photos

(21:26):
of this road, if you've ever seen this road. I
mean the cliffs are these are sheer cliffs with ragged
edges that are being washed away daily by rain. Um,
I don't know how the road is still there even.
I mean, and the and these since the elevation is
so high, it's ridiculous. It's Pike's peak in terms of
the stress on an engine. So yeah, it's extremely extremely high.

(21:48):
And um, I don't just super dangerous. I mean, if
you go over the edge, that's it and you're done.
We'll take the bypass. There we go. I'll tell you
something really quick before we before we end up, because
I know, I know, I got really excited about this,
and I've been talking to your head off. Okay, So
I was when I was living in guatemala Um in

(22:08):
the in the highlands there they have I was one
of those guys on one of those buses because that's
the cheapest form of transportation and it's oftentimes very reliable.
But these decommissioned um school buses like that Bluebird built
are everywhere in Central America, and there literally on every road.

(22:29):
And I think the reason, you know earlier I was,
I was kind of chickening out about Pike's Peak, and
I said now I'm not doing it. I might ride
with you, but that's it. Um. It's because of that man,
these these busses will I guess. The scariest part was
I was asking the driver. I said, Hey, how many
lanes does this thing happen? We're going down the side
of a volcano scott um and he said, you know,

(22:53):
maybe two, sometimes three, it depends. And then and then
I went and that down away from a window and
closed my eyes. Listen, I'm gonna put you on the spot.
When we talked about this off air, you mentioned that
you're holding a chicken. During the time, I was holding
a chicken on one ride. There were oil one right,

(23:14):
there was more than one ride. But because people are
are packed in so tight, you know, and because I
think I look like an okay, a trustworthy person, trustworthy
enough to hold someone to hold the chicken. Chicken. Yeah,
sure I am worthy of those chickens, apparently. And you
know what, that chicken was fine. Bet it is fine.
We did not wreck every Everybody went happily ever after,

(23:37):
except I assume it's sometimes the chicken met with an
untimely demise. But that's the way of the chicken. Yeah,
I have to say, I've never made a bus ride
holding a chicken. Hey man that once. Hey, don't be
you know you're you're a relatively young guy. I know
you got your whole life, happy to dream, dare to dream.
And I guess that wraps up for us today. Um

(23:57):
for all our listeners, thanks for tuning in. Guys. If
you have uh some automobile topic that you dared to
dream off, please email us at high Speed Stuff at
how stuff works dot com and we'll check it out.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
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(24:19):
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