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posted in Car Accidents on May 31, 2020
The Nevada Department of Public Safety—Office of Traffic Safety estimates more than 300 people die in traffic accidents each year on Nevada’s roads and highways in addition to the hundreds who suffer severe injuries. A severe traffic accident can occur anywhere, but some roads are more dangerous than others. Drivers who use the following roadways must take special care to prioritize safety and driver defensively to avoid causing or falling victim to a severe car accident. Whether you are visiting or a Nevada resident going on a road trip, you need to know the most dangerous roads in Nevada.
When you think of Las Vegas, you think of the ‘Las Vegas Strip.’ This famous stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard is home to the vast majority of Sin City’s large hotels and casinos, as well as massive amounts of tourists drunk on gambling and spirits. Not only do drunk drivers plague the Las Vegas Strip, especially late at night, but drivers who haven’t had proper rest and don’t know their way around the city also put others at risk for accident and injury. Las Vegas has plenty of other dangerous roads and intersections where car accidents occur regularly, but Las Vegas Boulevard is especially dangerous for pedestrians. Additionally, inebriated gamblers and show-goers who do not adhere traffic signals sometimes cause deadly or severe car accidents.
Nevada SR 582, nicknamed the Boulder Highway, is also located in the Greater Las Vegas area. This dangerous road is only a little more than 15 miles long and connects Downtown Las Vegas with Henderson, a nearby suburb. According to the Traffic Safety Coalition,approximately 10 percent of all pedestrian fatalities in Las Vegas occur along Boulder Highway, especially where the road intersects with Nellis Boulevard and Flamingo Road. According to the Nevada Department of Transportation, more than 100 traffic accidents, including several fatal crashes, occur at Nellis and Boulder and similar amounts at Flamingo and Boulder. In past years, the Las Vegas police department has reported the intersection of Boulder Highway and Sun Valley, near Eastside Cannery and Sam’s Town casinos, as the most dangerous intersection in Las Vegas.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reports that several million people drive between Las Vegas and Southern California each year. Unfortunately, multiple reports and research projects identify the 181-mile section of I-15 between Las Vegas and Los Angeles as one of Nevada’s most dangerous roads. In fact, this stretch of 1-15 has been named the most deadly stretch of road in the United States in the last decade, according to Scripps Howard News Service’s Killer Roads project. During the 15-year period of the Scripps study, more than 1,000 people died in more than 800 accidents, which is more than double the fatalities on any other road in the United States. Most of the fatalities resulted from excessive speed, drunk driving, distracted driving, and failure to wear seat belts.
Those who travel by car between Las Vegas and Phoenix typically drive on U.S. 93, ranked the most dangerous highway in the United States by Value Penguin, a popular consumer information website. The site examined highways in the United States and ranked them according to national crash statistics. Their study focused on crashes between 2010 and 2016; 90 people died in 70 fatal crashes during the time period. Making matters worse, U.S. 93 has one of the highest wait times for emergency response services—a median of 21 minutes. Even if a driver lives through a crash, those involved can still die waiting for an ambulance. The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) has spent more than a half-billion dollars over the last twenty years to expand U.S. 93 to a four-lane divided highway.
U.S. 50 is a major east-west highway that spans the entire nation between Maryland and Utah. The portion of the highway that runs through Nevada has been dubbed “The Loneliest Road” in the nation. Drivers are literally by themselves when they traverse several mountain rangers with 17 passes and one tunnel, including Connors Pass at almost 8,000 feet. For at least 250 miles of the 400 miles of U.S. 50 that runs through Nevada, you will find nothing but mountains, desert, and sky, making U.S. 50 especially dangerous for those who get in a car accident.
Nevada’s SR 431, sometimes referred to as Mount Rose Highway or Mount Rose Scenic Drive, is the paved 25-mile scenic route between Reno and Lake Tahoe in Western Nevada. The road goes over Mt. Rose Summit at more than 8,000 feet above sea level, the highest mountain pass that is open year-round in Nevada. Winter drivers are especially in danger when conditions quickly change and must watch up for major snowstorms. Dozens, sometimes more than 100 crashes, occur each winter. Unfortunately, many traffic accidents on Mt. Rose Highway result in fatalities because of the high drop vehicles face if they go off the road. In fact, the summit gets up to 400 inches of snow each winter, and drivers must have snow chains or tires to take the scenic drive. Yet, summer driving is also dangerous because of SR 431’s many hairpin curves and heavy traffic for those visiting the Lake Tahoe area.
When you know the most dangerous roads while traveling or exploring your own state, you can avoid them if possible, and avoid a potentially severe car accident. Even the safest drivers suffer injuries in car accidents when others on the road make poor choices behind the wheel. If you have recently suffered injuries in a Nevada car accident, contact the experienced Nevada car accident lawyers at Gina Corena & Associates online or at 702-680-1111 for a free consultation to discuss the circumstances of your accident and injuries and learn about how we can help you in the wake of a car accident.
