Dangerous Roads You Never Want To Drive On

August 11, 2024

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19 min read

There are lots of dangerous roads in the world, but some are more dangerous than others. Here are some roads you never want to drive on.

Everyone loves taking adventurous drives, especially when there are some unforgettable sights on offer. But some roads are so ridiculously dangerous that even the most thrill-seeking drivers would think twice about venturing down them. From treacherous mountain passes to roads that flood twice daily, let’s check out some roads you’d never want to drive on.

Leh-Manali Highway, India

In northern India, the 300-mile-long Leh-Manali highway connects the towns of Leh and Manali. It traverses some of the world’s highest mountain passes, with its highest points reaching more than 3 miles above sea level.

Tourists flock to see the spectacular landscapes, but with this scenic journey comes extremely long travel times and treacherous weather. It takes one full day to make the trek by jeep and two by bus. And if you run out of gas in the middle, there are no fuel stations for about 225 miles.

Conditions can become harsh quickly, with heavy snowfall and avalanches likely, and ice-cold water from melting glaciers regularly flooding the highway. Because of this, the road is only open for 4 ½ months of the year, but if staying alive is something you’re fond of, probably best avoid it altogether.

Trollstigen, Norway

If you’re looking for a hair-raising experience but are bored of theme parks, then how about taking a drive on Norway’s Trollstigen Road? The narrow, 65-mile-long road earns its name of ‘troll’s road’ with its evil-seeming number of hairpin bends; 11 total, all on a very steep gradient.

Buses longer than 40ft aren’t allowed to take the road, which makes sense when you see how incredibly difficult turnings are, especially with another vehicle waiting. Rockfalls, poor traction and low visibility with rain and fog can make the trip even more difficult to navigate, meaning it might be best to leave this road to the trolls.

Commonwealth Avenue, Philippines

It’s not always high altitudes and crazy weather that make a road dangerous. Sometimes, all it takes is a ton of reckless drivers with no respect for traffic rules.

The Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City, Philippines spans from 6 to 18 lanes, making it the widest in the Philippines. You’d think the more lanes, the more streamlined things would be, but the highway is always congested and chaotic. It earned its nickname, “killer highway”, thanks to the recklessness of the drivers and motorcyclists who use it.

With an every-man-for-himself approach as standard, and vehicles stopping anywhere to drop off and pick up passengers, 3 to 5 fatal accidents occur daily. To avoid joining those numbers, avoid this road!

Skippers Canyon Road, New Zealand

Considered an engineering miracle when it was built by miners in the late 1800s, Skippers Canyon Road in New Zealand is now considered the country’s most dangerous road.

Not much about the road itself has changed since those 19th-century workers sculpted this nail-bitingly narrow, 16.5-mile path into a sheer canyon cliff-face using little more than gunpowder and hand-drills.

The road is unpaved, narrow, mostly one-way, and skirted by a 330ft drop. Thanks to the natural softness of the rock, sunny days see the road obscured by dust, while rainy drives see the rock turned treacherously slick and muddy. In the unlucky event that someone encounters another car coming the opposite direction, they may find themselves having to reverse until the road widens enough for both vehicles.

Considering there are no guard-rails for much of the winding path, this could easily prove a very scary task indeed. Needless to say, if your reversing skills aren’t up to scratch, this isn’t the road for you! While it does have stunning views along the gorge of the Shotover River, can you imagine driving here when it’s dark or the road is wet?

99-Bend road, China

The 99-bend road in China may not be as long or high as some of the world’s other crazy roads, but that doesn’t make it any less daunting. This 7-mile winding road snakes upwards on a breath-taking journey to the top of Tianmen mountain.

While the road is like something out of a fairy tale, the low-lying guard walls wouldn’t help all that much if you lost control. After all, with hairpin bends, misjudging your speed even slightly could see your car flipped over the edge on a one-way ticket to the deep valley below.

The 99 bends are said to represent the 9 palaces of Heaven in Taoism, but whether experiencing them proves to be heavenly or hellish totally depends on you driving carefully! Luckily, the fainthearted have the option of enjoying the view in a cable car travelling 4.5 miles from the Zhangjiajie Railway Station. Or, even safer, you could just look at some pics and clips online.

Kolyma Highway, Russia

This unpaved, 1,260-mile-long road, known as the “Road of Bones” passes by a wide range of sights on its journey, snowy landscapes, forests, and a lot of dilapidated bridges.

The road gets its name from its dark past, having been of constructed by the forced labor people under Stalin’s brutal Communist regime between 1932 and 1953. The bones of an estimated 250,000 people who were worked to death in the inhumane conditions during its construction are buried beneath or around the road.

©via Wikimedia Commons

But the eerie atmosphere is the least of your worries if you ever take a drive along the Kolyma Highway. During winter, the unkempt road becomes incredibly dangerous due to heavy snow, ice, and reduced visibility.

But don’t expect a fun springtime drive either. In spring, the rains and flooding rivers turn the road into a muddy disaster that even heavy-duty trucks have difficulty navigating.

For anyone making this journey, just pray that that the local grizzly bears don’t like mud on their food if your vehicle breaks down along the forest trail.

Zoji La Pass, India

If you are looking for a place to take a relaxing Sunday afternoon drive, India’s Zoji La pass is not it! Driving on this 16-mile-long winding road that reaches as high as 11,500ft is sure to keep you on edge, literally and figuratively. It’s so narrow, it’s almost impossible for two-way traffic to pass, and yet locals do so every day, albeit through some hair-raisingly tight squeezes.

Located on the western part of the Himalayan Mountains and bordered by the Kashmir and Drass basins, the pass does offer spectacular landscapes. But don’t get too caught up in the breath-taking views, because strong winds, dense traffic and occasional heavy snowfall makes it extra perilous if you aren’t careful.

The occasional herd of goats being led to pasture don’t make it much easier, either. But goats aside, the weather along the pass is the craziest part. In fact, snowfall and mudslides are so intense in the winter months that the pass is closed half of the year.

By the time spring rolls around, the snow is piled so high, it takes the Border Roads Organization two months to clear the path! But considering the name Zoji La translates to ‘Pass of Blizzards’, at least you get what you pay for.

Eyre Highway, Australia

If you look at Australia’s Eyre highway, you might wonder what makes it daunting. There are no steep cliff-sides, no hairpin bends and no other vehicles in sight. But that’s precisely the danger.

It’s the longest and loneliest straight stretch in the country, spanning over 1,000 miles between Western and South Australia. Accidents are typically caused by driver fatigue, or collisions with the local wildlife of kangaroos, emus and camels. And thanks to the remoteness and non-existent phone reception, the time for rescue to arrive could easily seal any unfortunate driver’s fate.

To make matters worse, bushfires have been known to ravage the highway during the Australian summer. But, hey, at least you won’t be bored or sleepy with a bushfire chasing you.

Col du Parpaillon, France

Col du Parpaillon is one of the highest mountain roads of Europe, reaching 1.7 miles above sea level. In its heyday, the road was an integral supply route for French military forces guarding the border with Italy, but it’s since fallen out of use and into disrepair. Now, the road is gravelly and treacherous, with sharp bends and steep drops onto the rocky mountainside unprotected by guard rails.

At the top of the unpaved road sits the Parpaillon Tunnel, which was built by the French army in the early 20th century. The 1,710ft-long tunnel is pitch-black and crumbling, thanks to being effectively abandoned, and often becomes slick with runoff ice and water from the surrounding mountains.

With serious potholes dotting the floor, riding through with too much speed, even on just a mountain bike, could easily send you over the handlebars. Or worse, bump you upwards, where your head might connect against the walls with a neck-breaking crack. Enter this treacherous, icy tunnel only if you’re certain you’ll see the light at the end!

Taroko Gorge Road, Taiwan

Similar to the Guoliang Tunnel Road in China, Taiwan’s Taroko Gorge Road was made by carving out routes along a mountainside. With blind bends and cramped tunnels, getting distracted for even a second could easily prove fatal.

To make things trickier, driving along this road means contending for space with countless pedestrians, scooters, cars, and tour buses, all drawn in by the natural beauty of the gorge.

But as if depending on the safe driving of others wasn’t stressful enough, you’ll also have to worry about natural disasters! Earthquakes and tropical cyclones are common in the area, making it easy for pieces of the mountain-wall to break loose.

The falling rocks make this road one big, deadly game of dodgeball. And, just like high-school gym class, I’ll be calling in sick for this one.

Kabul–Jalalabad Road, Afghanistan

Connecting the cities of Kabul and Jalalabad in Afghanistan, this Highway follows the Kabul River Gorge, winding along 2,000-ft-tall cliffs. The mountain views would be pretty spectacular if it weren’t for the narrow turns, sharp cliffs, rockfalls and reckless driving. And the fact that a large section of the road passes through Taliban territory.

There’s also the issue of the slow-moving trucks hauling dangerously-heavy loads up the steep, winding paths. Occasionally, the drivers of these trucks realize, all to late, that their load is too heavy to lug up the steepest portions of the road. This occasionally leaves them stuck, or worse, rolling backwards, causing untold disaster for those stuck behind!

With such a deadly combination of both natural and human-caused danger lying round every bend, this crazy road is not for the faint of heart. But if extreme, death-defying tourism is your thing, this is probably the place for you.

The Sichuan-Tibet Highway

The 1,300-mile-long Sichuan-Tibet highway passes through 14 mountains, and a handful of ancient forests. The views may be enthralling but the road is notorious for its hairpin bends and poor-quality driving surfaces, and that’s in good weather! Regularly, rain, snow and ice transform the road into a slushy mess, causing serious traffic jams.

All of this is worsened by the fact that oxygen is only around half that at sea level. This not only means people are shorter of breath; their cars are too! Vehicles perform noticeably more sluggishly at higher altitudes, as the reduced oxygen to feed their combustion engines reduces efficiency considerably.

On top of that, as you ascend to the highest points along the road, which exceed 13,000ft above sea level, tire pressure can noticeably drop, reducing vehicle handling and braking.

So, if you’re not careful, you could find yourself stuck up a mountain, in an oxygen-deprived car you can barely control, that struggles to make it up the steepest hills. And when it finally makes it up and over, it might not be able to slow down or stop as it plummets down the other side!

Altogether, these stressful risk factors seem to bring out the worst in drivers, as there are regular reports of fights, theft, and harassment when people become stuck in the mountainous traffic. And you thought regular road-rage was bad!

Khardung La, India

Khardung La is one of the world’s highest drivable roads, and there are some serious obstacles in the way of anyone hoping to visit. People usually get altitude sickness at about 8,000ft and Khardung La rises to double that.

At 3.3 miles above sea level, only the most acclimatized drivers can make the journey. With no medical facilities to treat altitude sickness along the unpaved, remote route, getting sick is not an option.

On top of that, there’s a high risk of avalanches during monsoons and winter, which means the road often becomes blocked for hours at a time. But with stunning views, slowly succumbing to altitude sickness while stuck in traffic becomes a little easier.

Mount Aso, Kyushu, Japan

It doesn’t get much crazier than driving on a road that heads directly up the caldera of an active volcano. This is the case at Mount Aso in Kyushu, Japan, where you can park up directly on the volcano’s lip.

Unsurprisingly, the conditions can get a bit too hot to handle, with harsh temperatures and the emission of toxic gases, which regularly get so bad the roads have to be closed off. It’s also been known to erupt from time to time, which is never something you want to deal with on an afternoon drive.

Roads around Kīlauea, Hawaii

Jumping from the caldera straight into the lava, the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii has been spewing out large quantities of slow-moving lava since 1983.

These near-unstoppable flows regularly damage buildings and block roads, often forcing residents to up-and-move to avoid losing everything. The May 2018 eruption, for example, buried about 13 miles of public roads, costing $82 million to repair.

Karakoram Highway

The Karakoram Highway connects Pakistan and China across the Karakoram mountain range, and is considered the highest properly-paved international road, at nearly 3 miles above sea level.

The height is a problem for people who get altitude sickness, as are the regular avalanches, landslides, heavy snowfall and floods. Basically, all the things you don’t want happening when you’re driving on a steep mountain road above a terrifyingly-deep gorge.

Around 1,000 workers died during its construction in the 70s, but if you’re not afraid of ghosts, heights or dying, this might be the perfect vacation spot for you.

Hindustan Tibet Road, India

Driving along a steep cliff is scary enough, but cruising along a half-carved tunnel in the mountainside is another level. The Hindustan Tibet road reaches between India and Tibet, having been carved out of the rock as a trade route by workers in the 1850s.

©Anusharma via Wikimedia Commons

While it mostly consists of dirt tracks dropping off into sheer ravines without guard rails, the road occasionally veers into man-made tunnels which, judging by their haphazard appearance, probably don’t feel much safer.

Chitral to Parsan Valley, Pakistan

With a dusty, loose gravel surface, where the smallest error can prove fatal, the long, mountainous road connecting the Pakistani towns Chitral and Parsan is not to be taken lightly.

Its winding paths and tunnels are carved roughly into the rock, barely wide enough to let two cars pass each other, and even narrower at certain points. The tight squeeze through the tunnel sections immediately open up to sharp turns, and for those who approach too fast, a very steep and deadly drop.

The poorly-maintained roads frequently crumble into the connecting valleys and rivers, as the area is devastated by flooding and earthquakes on an alarmingly regular basis. Makeshift, rickety bridges dot the path as temporary solutions to the crumbling roads, though they don’t inspire a huge amount of confidence.

[©Source Unknown]

But, like many of Pakistan’s precarious mountain drives, if you’re brave enough to take the risk, the payoff is pretty spectacular. Just don’t step too close to the edge when you’re soaking up the views.

Sach Pass, India

Connecting India’s Chamba valley with the remote, rocky Pangi valley, is a treacherous road that reaches almost 14,500ft above sea level.

Given that enormous walls of snow and ice coat leave the roads of Sach Pass impassable in the winter months, it’s only open from June to mid-October each year. But that’s not to say it’s an easy ride even in summer months. Landslides are a continual threat thanks to the soft, muddy land surrounding the road, and the gravelly surface is uncomfortably bumpy and unstable.

Then there’s the seasonal waterfalls that flow directly onto the road. These worrying water-features spill out onto the path, requiring a quick, and undoubtedly, terrifying, splash-ride through their shallow flows to pass.

But if you can handle the back pain from the bumpy ride, and the risk of being swept over the edge by a rogue waterfall, your reward is some of the most breath-taking views on Earth.

Fairy Meadows Road, Pakistan

Located in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan, Fairy Meadows Road is the main access route to the picturesque Fairy Meadows national park. But getting to that breath-taking final location isn’t easy.

The winding road, which reaches almost 11,000ft above sea level, is completely unpaved, with loose gravel kicking up dust and providing very little grip for tires and feet alike. With barely enough road width to facilitate a single vehicle at many points, and with traffic moving in both directions, navigating is no simple feat.

As there are no guard rails, one wrong move could send you plummeting over the edge. Throw in the looming threats of heavy snowfalls, avalanches, and slick patches of ice, and you might begin to think this road is trying to kill people.

Regardless, outside of its closure due to impassable weather conditions during winter, countless people still brave the journey every year.

Sangla Road, India

In the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, a road passes through the Sangla Valley with equal measures of stunning views and nail-biting danger.

If you lose control on this tightly-winding road, the only things stopping you plummeting over the edge are the concrete blocks sparsely-placed along certain stretches. Unfortunately, though, these are placed with enough of a gap between them for a small car or motorbike to easily slip through.

But the real hazards to watch out for are the landslides. Thanks to the looseness of the mountain rock, huge sections have been known to crumble down, blocking access to the town of Sangla. If you found yourself in the middle of one of these landslides, you’d barely have time to notice the rumbling sound before it struck.

Assuming you weren’t crushed by the initial impact, the force of thousands of tons of rock and soil would sweep your vehicle over the edge before you even knew a landslide had occurred.

North Yungas Road, Bolivia

Of all the dauntingly-named roads I’ve mentioned so far, none have earned their title more than Bolivia’s North Yungas Road, otherwise known as “Death Road”. There used to be about 300 deaths per year there, thanks to the sheer drops of 2,000 feet along the 40-mile long road.

Nowadays, those figures are closer to 5 deaths a year, thanks to the installation of a few guard rails and other safety measures. Most significantly, the road is now officially closed to vehicles, but as this rule isn’t strictly enforced, travelers still occasionally encounter cars, trucks, and wagons on the trail.

But even when there are only the legally-allowed mountain bikers along the path, it’s far from a safe route. The sharp turns, thick jungle in all directions and drastic changes in temperature, from freezing to scorching, make this a truly treacherous journey. On hot, dry days, the dust kicked up massively reduces visibility, making navigating the already-difficult terrain even more dangerous.

With all these things considered, it’s not hard to see how this perilous road of death got its nickname. And the crosses lining the roadside in memory of those who’ve perished there make sure no one ever forgets.

James Dalton Highway, Alaska

There is something chilling about the James Dalton Highway in Alaska. It runs through some of Northern America’s most isolated settlements, and for 240 miles, there are no hotels, gas stations, restaurants, cell-phone service or radio reception.

It’s not a road many dare drive on, and it’s mostly used by long-haulers delivering supplies to the isolated settlements. Portions of the road are unpaved, with some stretches passing over frozen bodies of water, which can cause disasters when they melt in warmer weather.

Avalanches can similarly turn a routine journey into a serious predicament for unlucky drivers. But even summer brings its own challenges, as the melting ice causes severe flooding. So, unless your 18-wheeler is amphibious, you might want to think twice about taking this road.

Kuandinsky Bridge in Russia

Whoever coined the phrase “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it”, clearly never saw the Kuandinsky Bridge in Russia. Only people with nerves of steel can venture on this old, rickety bridge that was never completed, despite construction beginning 30 years ago.

Drivers reportedly traverse the 6-foot-wide bridge with their windows rolled down, to minimize the push of the strong winds that threaten to send their vehicles into the frozen water below.

With no railings, if you’re ever forced to make a trip across this third-of-a-mile-long architectural abomination, probably best to drive straight and try not to overthink it.

Passage du Gois, France

On the west coast of France, the Passage du Gois not only offers some seaside views, it also pulls a disappearing act twice daily. During high tide, this 2.6-mile road that connects the Gulf of Burnef to Noirmoutier becomes submerged under water, sometimes as deep as 13ft.

The tides are such a problem that special emergency towers have been built for people who become trapped to climb and wait for help. On top of that, when the tide recedes, leftover seaweed makes the road dangerously slippery, making the risk of an accident even higher. So, unless you want to donate your car as a home for French fishes, make sure you don’t get stuck at high-tide in the Passage du Gois!

I hope you were amazed at these dangerous roads you never want to drive on! Thanks for reading.