Most "frightening" road you have driven on?

[CapeCodder]

What road or stretch of road for that matter gave you white knuckles when you traveled it?

Here are a couple of my examples:

MA 2- The only part of MA 2 that gave me white knuckles was the Whitcomb Summit hairpins. That stretch was my first hairpin and I thought I was going to pass out. I had heard of the hairpin and knew it was the only way to get down into the Hoosic Valley and North Adams. If this traversal had been during the day I would have had a little less stress, but this was at around 10:30 at night and I was dying to get that clinch of 2.

MO 94- This is from one of my storm chasing trips. If anyone in St. Louis remembers the Good Friday Tornado of 2011, I was one of the first chasers to call in one of the tornadoes (the one that had mentioned "long tracks of trees") to the NWS in Weldon Spring and that was relayed to KMOX 1120. The stretch of MO 94 I'm about to refer to is in E. Saint Charles County. The ground is low and flat. Rain happens. Rain leads to flooding. Road closes, leading you into finding roads that you hope are open. Luckily for me I was able to break off of 94 at Portage Des Souix, go north on J and then cut over to this little place called Seeburger and cross 370 into higher territory. I believe I went 5-10 miles out of my way in a shallow arc. I saw some shit, let me tell you. Some roads became streams and were flooded about 10-12 inches. Drainage is poor out that way. Also, some of the locals will outright challenge you to try to cross the flooded roads. Potential Darwin Award right there. I tended to avoid chasing in that part of St. Charles County because of the road network: it looks good on paper but in reality the roads are so poorly maintained you'll want to stay out!

[Max Rockatansky]

Kaiser Pass Road in the Sierras is definitely bad ass enough to get me sweating on it and more than a little nervous.  After the first five miles it is just a single lane (and I mean single) with several large slopes on cliffs that require low gear.  Basically the rule of thumb I go by is to roll my windows down and turn off anything that makes noise so I can hear.  If I hear a noise off in the distance more than likely it is another car which means I need to stop.  The drop from Kaiser Ridge is particularly brutal and requires someone to back up if traffic encounters each other.  I don't think many people want to start backing up downhill on this:

IMG_2657 by Max Rockatansky, on Flickr

This past July I actually encountered a fire truck a little behind where I took this photo.  I wasn't really in position to back up so I just wheeled as close to the cliff as I could and we managed to pass each other:

IMG_2719 by Max Rockatansky, on Flickr

[TheHighwayMan3561]

US 550. It took me a couple days to convince myself to drive it, then immediately as Red Mountain Pass started I met two RVs travelling in the opposite direction which didn't ease my nerves.

[Hurricane Rex]

Hard to say but probably Going to the Sun Road. Most won't understand unless you drive there.

[index]

A narrow, unnamed, one lane road that went to the peaks of Trinidad's Northern Range Mountains to service radio towers. My father was driving up the road, and decided that he was going to try and turn around, when he realized that road wasn't going anywhere, right next to a steep drop off. He proceeded to do this, and unknowingly nearly drove right off the damn road. Everyone in the car was screaming for him to stop, and fortunately, he did. He also drove the wrong way (this country drives on the right) multiple times, and my mother was not inclined to let him drive the car anymore.

[fillup420]

US 221 below the blue ridge parkway between Linville and Blowing Rock NC. Super gnarly drive, lots of sharp corners and elevation change.

[Max Rockatansky]

US 550. It took me a couple days to convince myself to drive it, then immediately as Red Mountain Pass started I met two RVs travelling in the opposite direction which didn't ease my nerves.

CA 180 in Kings Canyon says hello:

IMG_6587 by Max Rockatansky, on Flickr

I'm assuming it was the section of US 550 immediately south of Ouray?

IMG_7142 by Max Rockatansky, on Flickr

[Rothman]

Hard to say but probably Going to the Sun Road. Most won't understand unless you drive there.

I have been there and don't understand what is scary about it.

[Hurricane Rex]

Hard to say but probably Going to the Sun Road. Most won't understand unless you drive there.

I have been there and don't understand what is scary about it.

The reason why I think it is scary is because of a almost nonexistent guardrail with a 2000 foot plunge below and the people who are on it park in the median making it more unsafe. My parents started the term "tourons" for this purpose (and others.

LG-TP260

[hbelkins]

I-95 between DC and Richmond. Bumper-to-bumper traffic and people driving like idiots.

[Max Rockatansky]

I-95 between DC and Richmond. Bumper-to-bumper traffic and people driving like idiots.

And that's the irony...   The busiest Interstates no matter how well built will always have way more dangers on them simply due to the volume of bad drivers.  For all the mountain roads everyone has listed so far none of them will approach the fatality level of a good urban Freeway. 

[JREwing78]

My two nominations:

I-90 in IL between Rockford and Elgin during the reconstruction work in 2013 and 2014. They had 2 9-foot wide lanes in each direction, no shoulders, and concrete barriers, mixing it up with semis and other traffic doing 20+ over the posted 45 mph speed limit. I purposely drove 45 minutes out of my way on I-39 and I-88 to avoid it.

M-28 between Munising and Marquette, MI, during a lake effect snow squall in high winds. The highway runs just on-shore of the lake for extensive stretches, and I had the misfortune of driving it during a storm with 40+ mph winds driving heavy snow bands on-shore. I literally couldn't see beyond the end of my hood, and the only thing keeping me on the road was substantial snowbanks from earlier plowing delineating the shoulders. I literally drove at 10 mph with my 4-ways on hoping that nobody would slam into me from behind. Usually, in those conditions, the Michigan State Police shuts the road down, but for some reason that night they hadn't.

[Rothman]

I-95 between DC and Richmond. Bumper-to-bumper traffic and people driving like idiots.

Good point and very much agree.

[corco]

I-95 between DC and Richmond. Bumper-to-bumper traffic and people driving like idiots.

And that’s the irony...   The busiest Interstates no matter how well built will always have way more dangers on them simply due to the volume of bad drivers.  For all the mountain roads everyone has listed so far none of them will approach the fatality level of a good urban Freeway. 

Yep. Maybe it's because I grew up as a driver in McCall, Idaho, but twisty mountain roads never faze me, even in winter conditions without guardrail.

I get most nervous as a driver on heavily-congested-but-still-moving-above-speed-limit urban expressways with lights in unfamiliar areas. Can't name any specific ones, and it's not like I avoid them, but to me driving on that kind of roadway requires the most concentration.

I'd say the most "frightened" I've been driving is on Albania Highway 4 south of Durres - lots of fast moving truck traffic and giant holes where the road has failed, making for a lot of quick acceleration and sudden braking.

Mexico 199 between Palenque and San Cristobal is also a generally exhausting drive - there must be 300 topes along that stretch and there are frequently roadblocks somewhere along it.

[Flint1979]

In 2012 I was driving from Michigan to North Carolina and for some reason had my GPS set to avoid toll roads which on this trip avoided the Ohio Turnpike and West Virginia Turnpike. I thought it was giving me a strange routing since it told me to take I-75 to exit 156 in Ohio then US 68 down to Kenton SR 31 to Marysville then US 33 to I-270 and on from that way. I was fine following US 33 on the other side of Columbus heading towards West Virginia somehow though the GPS routed me along a road up in the mountains, it was a long winding road following a river and railroad tracks, I remember the road had to make a curve just to get around a house. It was frightening because I had no idea where I was headed and what might come next.

[webny99]

Hard to say but probably Going to the Sun Road. Most won't understand unless you drive there.

My parents have driven on it, but not me. From pictures, I'd tend to agree.

If you want hairpin, try US 60 in West Virginia at night. Or this road leading to the summit of Cumberland Gap.

[inkyatari]

Hard to say but probably Going to the Sun Road. Most won't understand unless you drive there.

In 86, my father, brother and I went on an Amtrak trip to Seattle with a stopover in Glacier park.  Our tour bus driver told us that they have a "Wall club" of first time drivers who accidentally get a wheel up on the retaining walls on the valley side of the road. Unnerving.

As for me, the most frightening road I've ever driven onwas AZ 88, the Apache Highway, east out of Phoenix AZ.  Scenic as all hell, but the Fish Creek Hill section of the road looks like it's going to slide into the valley.  Scary stuff.

[Henry]

I'm certain that the top level of any four- or five-level stack interchange (mainline or ramp) would most certainly qualify. As for actual highways, I'd say the Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago, because you run the risk of having rocks thrown or getting shot at your car from one of the underpasses.

[1995hoo]

This one is rather different from most of the others mentioned: This thread made me think of Rockaway Freeway in Queens, the road that runs underneath the elevated subway trestle and used to have two lanes per side with people driving way too fast, plus people slamming on the brakes to make illegal U-turns, plus there used to be those traffic lights with no yellow signals. They reduced it to one lane each way in the late 1990s. I haven't been out to Far Rockaway in years (no reason to go since my grandmother who lived there died), but I hear part of Rockaway Freeway has now been closed completely.

In terms of more "normal" reasons for a road to be "frightening," I suppose the trip down the Moki Dugway might qualify due to the sheer drop-offs and the lack of guardrails, but I was enjoying the drive and the scenery too much to be scared. Ms1995hoo, however, was decidedly NOT happy on the trip down because she was on the side closer to the drop-off as we started down from the top.

[Flint1979]

I'm certain that the top level of any four- or five-level stack interchange (mainline or ramp) would most certainly qualify. As for actual highways, I'd say the Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago, because you run the risk of having rocks thrown or getting shot at your car from one of the underpasses.

That happened on I-75 in October a little north of Flint, Michigan. Some teenagers from Clio thought it was a good idea to throw rocks at cars traveling on I-75. They were throwing rocks at cars going south from the Dodge Road overpass, one person was killed in this situation and the teenagers did get caught and are facing adult charges. They even went to a McDonald's to eat after doing this.

[Chris19001]

Black Bear Pass Road going into Telluride, CO.  I doubt I have the know how to make it all the way, but I drove a short stretch of it..
http://www.dangerousroads.org/north-america/usa/177-black-bear-road-usa.html (not my website)

[Kniwt]

National Forest Road 062 heading SW out of Jarbidge, Nevada toward Bear Creek Pass and Elko. I'd seen it on some website (long since forgotten) that mentioned it as part of a scenic loop drive. The road into Jarbidge from US 93 was mostly good to excellent, and the town was well worth the visit, but the outbound trip scared the living crap out of me.

I grabbed a photo of the warning sign at the beginning, but I wasn't expecting the steep cliffs ... and a surprising amount of ATVs using the road.

After Bear Creek Pass, conditions generally improved. I did this in September 2015, so no idea how conditions might have changed since then. (And, of course, not even worth considering in mid-winter.)

[ZLoth]

Submitted for your consideration:
- California State Route 4 between Lake Alpine and California State Route 89. Drove it as part of a CA-4 end-to-end one day. That section is a single lane paved roller coaster.
- California State Route 29 between Middleton and Calistoga. Very twisty and busy section of road.
- Yankee Jim Road between Foresthill and Colfax, CA. Goes over the very old Yankee Jim bridge. (See this link and this link). I took this road by MISTAKE, too. I missed the sign that said "primitive road".

[US 81]

Most of the "frightening" roads I have driven I was well-prepared for, but I do remember once as an over-confident young driver in my late teens, I took a road-geeking trip specifically for the purpose of driving US 666. I was prepared for back gravel roads to be challenging, but not a US highway. I badly underestimated the concentration required for sustained mountain driving on that road. The scenery was gorgeous, but there was so much traffic - so many drivers drifted out of their lane even with the cut rock-face on one side and the no-guardrail steep cliff on the other. It was exhilarating but exhausting, and took far more time than I had budgeted.

[bzakharin]

US 1 (Roosevelt Blvd) in Northeast Philly, especially turning left onto it from Red Lion Road. After probably doing it wrong twice (blocking oncoming turning traffic the first time and thru traffic behind me the second time) I gave up started going straight and making a few turns to get onto Woodhaven Road (PA 63 freeway) bypassing US 1 entirely. I still don't know how to navigate that intersection properly, or whether what I did was normal.