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Been planning a Route 66 trip for next month (San Diego to Albuquerque) and got curious about safety along the way since I'll be on some older stretches I'm not familiar with. Route 66 turning 100 this year got me down a rabbit hole and I found this crash data breakdown; I pulled 4 years of NHTSA fatal crash data and mapped it against the corridor: https://www.thefinelawfirm.com.....-route-66/
A couple of things stood out:
- Some of the worst stretches are right around Albuquerque, including the old alignment near Rio Puerco Bridge/Dead Man's Curve
- The flat, straight stretches (like near Winslow, AZ) are almost as bad as the twisty mountain ones; apparently people zone out on the boring parts
- Over 40% of fatal crashes happen between 5 pm and midnight
Kind of makes me want to build in more stops instead of just powering through those sections. Anyone here driven the NM/AZ stretch recently? Is it worth pulling off anywhere specific, or are there times of day you'd avoid?
Offline littleraccoon337 said
Been planning a Route 66 trip for next month (San Diego to Albuquerque) and got curious about safety along the way since I'll be on some older stretches I'm not familiar with. Route 66 turning 100 this year got me down a rabbit hole and I found this crash data breakdown; I pulled 4 years of NHTSA fatal crash data and mapped it against the corridor: https://www.thefinelawfirm.com.....-route-66/ foodleA couple of things stood out:
- Some of the worst stretches are right around Albuquerque, including the old alignment near Rio Puerco Bridge/Dead Man's Curve
- The flat, straight stretches (like near Winslow, AZ) are almost as bad as the twisty mountain ones; apparently people zone out on the boring parts
- Over 40% of fatal crashes happen between 5 pm and midnightKind of makes me want to build in more stops instead of just powering through those sections. Anyone here driven the NM/AZ stretch recently? Is it worth pulling off anywhere specific, or are there times of day you'd avoid?
That 5 pm–midnight stat would definitely make me rethink the timing. For anyone who’s done this stretch recently, is there a particular section of old Route 66 in NM or AZ that you’d avoid driving after dark?
