Basically, it was not the "road itself" causing all the crashes and deaths but the inability of motorists properly driving. There were many times in my youth when, living in the Hampton Roads area, we would use US 58 west to take weekend trips to the mountains or visiting friends in Burlington, NC. Traffic was not heavy and, as
Beltway has said, the truck traffic was very low. We had no problems, mostly because my father paid attention while driving and, being that he grew up in the Syracuse area, he was used to driving on two-lane quality NY state highways as well as the county highways.
Some of the crashes occurred because motorists were pulling onto US 58 from the side roads and did not properly judge how far another vehicle was from them. I remember reading about at least five such crashes in the Virginian-Pilot back in the late 1970's-1980's.
It was not a "heavily traveled" corridor back in the 1970's and early 1980's. It, however, did start becoming more traveled starting in the late 1980's for some reason (Franklin bypass?), necessitating the upgrade. Now, it is a lot safer to drive.
Not to get into the "US 58/I-95 vs I-87" discussion/debate/argument, and I may have posted this before, depending on how one motorist wants to drive from Raleigh to Hampton Roads (and vice versa), it doesn't matter which way is quicker. A motorist is going to drive whichever way they want to--or however their GPS tells them
.
Each route has its own merit. Those living in western Chesapeake, Portsmouth, and Suffolk are more than likely going to use US 58/I-95 to get to Raleigh. Those living in Norfolk, Virginia Beach, and central and southern Chesapeake may want to use I-87, in the obvious far-off future, to get to Raleigh. However, if there was an Interstate highway proposal to "cut both the corners", the above mentioned discussion would not last for 50+ pages over two or three threads.