heads up, houston
Houston freeway named most dangerous in the U.S. by new report
Houston has topped another list, but it’s hard to get revved up over this one. Popular Mechanics has released its ranking of the 25 most dangerous roads in America, and a local highway rolls out as No. 1.
The national publication names I-45 as the most dangerous roadway in the U.S. So just where should drivers be most wary? Here’s what Popular Mechanics has to day:
“With 56.5 fatal accidents for every 100 miles of roadway, the scariest part is through Houston, where officials blame people simply not obeying traffic laws — texting while driving, driving drunk, and driving at excessive speeds — as the main culprit for the deaths.”
Houston, you’ve been warned. Heads up.
The report also notes that data doesn’t point to “any specific roadway feature on why I-45 through Houston has risen to the top of the list as one of the most dangerous stretches of road in America and, in recent years, been classified as one of the deadliest in the entire world.”
I-45 isn’t the only Texas roadway to make the list. At No. 5 is the winding U.S. 83, which stretches from the Canadian border south to the Mexico border, passing through the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Things get rough as it runs through in Texas. The roadway averages one death every other week and the crash and fatality rates are bigger in Texas, according to the report.
Also landing on the report is U.S. Route 175 in Dallas, which comes in at No. 15. The highway runs for some 111 miles east to west from Dallas to Jacksonville, Texas. Reports reveal that the route averages about 0.7 deaths per mile, but almost half of those occur every year in the Dallas section of the roadway. Popular Mechanics notes that the high death count in Dallas may be blamed “less on the road and its features than on the population.”
While the publication doesn’t reveal the specifics of its methodology, it does note that the World Health Organization ranks the U.S. as more dangerous than most northern European countries, at 11 highway deaths per 100,000 population per year — three times the death rate of the U.K., for example.
