Oh God! How do you even do that to a car?!

September 23, 2005 8:53 AM

Prurient car-wreck-watcher filter// I am convinced that the Beltway area is the most dangerous place to drive in the US. How can I prove or disprove this? What do you think?

I live on 395 in Northern Virgnia, I work on 270 in Maryland, I've lived here for 18 months, but I've spent a lot of that time working (and driving 8+ hours a day) all over the country. I am convinced that the Beltway area is the most dangerous place to drive in the US (not so much DC proper).

After spending a month driving all around the Inland Empire and LA, on Interstates that feel like they should be dangerous, and only seeing evidence of a couple of wrecks, I came back to Northern Virginia and saw 4 or 5 really serious looking crashes in a couple of days. I've driven in Philly, where people drive insanely, and in Hartford in ice and snow; I've driven pretty much all over the country by now (although not in Florida, which I hear is bad) and yet every single memorably horrible wreck I've seen has been on or around the Beltway. Flipped over cars, multiple car wrecks, burning trucks, pools of blood!

I know that statistically most wrecks occur near home, because most people drive most near home (and so most people probably see the most wrecks near home), but I have definately not done most of my driving near where I live. Can anyone help me back this up (or not) annecdotal evidence also welcome!

posted by crabintheocean to travel & transportation (6 comments total)

Maybe the Fatality Analysis Reporting System from the DOT will give some useful stats.
posted by GuyZero at 9:00 AM on September 23, 2005

I heard a lot that the most dangerous stretch of major interstate was between Asheville and Newport, TN on route 40. It is very narrow and very fast and there are rocks that drop onto traffic occassionaly.
posted by OmieWise at 9:07 AM on September 23, 2005

Oh, also, in case you missed this thread, the site is well worth visiting (if scary and sad).
posted by OmieWise at 9:16 AM on September 23, 2005

It depends on how you define dangerous, but Dateline did a story about this a little bit ago.
It's a transcript, so no chart, but if you read it, they point out some roads I know by experience to be hairy.

Maybe they just don't clear wrecks in DC as fast as they do in other places?
posted by madajb at 10:42 AM on September 23, 2005

The Beltway is certainly pretty bad, but I guess the answer depends upon how you define "most dangerous." There are a lot of accidents on the Beltway, to be sure, but there probably aren't that many relative to the number of automobiles that travel it. It gets a very high volume, as I'm sure you know.

I grew up in Northern Virginia, spent 12 years living in the Boston area, and then moved back to N.Va. a few years ago. It's my considered opinion that the Beltway has a kind of "Boston driver zone" built into it, where drivers that aren't bad on the other area roads turn insane as soon as they get off the entrance ramp.
posted by cerebus19 at 10:50 AM on September 23, 2005

crab- I hear the same speculation all the time, but I've never found any concrete proof. The theme comes up frequently in the Washington Post's Dr. Gridlock column (reg req), so you're not alone in your observations.
posted by grateful at 11:03 AM on September 23, 2005