Other than when you’re heel-toeing in your pajamas as you pilot car-shaped polygons through a flat-screen LED landscape, you probably don’t like or ever want to be scared by the roads or terrain you’re driving on.
Challenging roads are fun, bring ’em on. You can just take it easier, go slower, or turn around if a set of twisty bits proves too taxing or a trail is gnarlier than what you’re up for. But a dangerous road (or bridge, or tunnel, or trail) that simply must be traveled to reach the destination will have any driver looking for a detour. And those are the driving experiences we’re Autopian Asking you about today!
I got to drive what would have been some truly harrowing roads and trails along the Baja peninsula thanks to a press trip back in the aughts. Radio-control car maker HPI Racing introduced its Baja 5b gas buggy by flying the editors of the big four RC buff books (print magazines were still a thing then) to Mexico for a tour with Wide Open Baja. We spent two days in the outfit’s VW-powered buggies with stops along the way to wheel the new 1/5 scale model. Lots of fun, as you can imagine.
I say the roads would have been harrowing because instead of being alone in the desert in a “regular” car or truck that might not make it through (or home), we were on a tour with guides in purpose-built off-roaders, and each driver could go as slow as they wanted or fast as they dared, which was rarely as fast as the buggies could go. Challenging and fun, yes, but scary, no.
Here’s what used to really give me serious four-wheel frights:
The Jamestown [expletive] Bridge.
I swear, I just shuddered typing the words. This overgrown, underbuilt, Erector-set-looking steel structure was a sphincter-clencher on a number of levels. First, it only had two lanes. No, not two in each direction, two lanes total. And they were narrow, with no room for a breakdown, and nothing to separate you from the cars hurtling toward you other than a mutual desire to complete the crossing alive. Second, the bridge was not paved. No no. Instead, you drove over steel grating. I kid you not, you could see through the driving surface to the cold water below, which really made you appreciate every inch of the 135 feet you would fall if you drove over the side of the bridge (I recall the guard rails being about as thick as electrical conduit) or the whole damn thing collapsed beneath you. And it definitely felt like the whole damn thing might collapse beneath you. The weight of traffic alone was enough to make it buck and bounce, and when the wind got up (which it did, frequently), you could feel it yaw and sway. I have no doubt many prayers were uttered between the shores that wretched bridge spanned until it was finally closed in 1992 with the opening of the rock-solid Jamestown Verrazano Bridge – side by side below.
The old steel structure only got scarier as it rusted and nature tried to reclaim it, evolving into a ruddy green-veined hulk as vines crawled over the corroding girders. It stood until 2006, when explosives were used to bring the monster down. Its steel bones went to the scrapyard and the moorings were planted elsewhere as artificial reefs, but I swear, you can still hear it creaking and popping if you listen closely in the dead of a cold winter night in Jamestown.
Whew, that was a lot. What’s the scariest road, bridge, trail, or tunnel you’ve experienced? The Autopian is asking!
Top graphic image credit: bizoo_n/stock.adobe.com
The Lachin Corridor road connecting Armenia with Nagorno Karabakh while it was still mostly unpaved. Looking out the side window to see the wrecks of vehicles, including tanks, that didn’t make it was a bit scary.
New River Road in Cave Creek/Carefree Arizona. The Horny Toad restaurant menu says it best: “Ain’t new, ain’t no river, and it ain’t much of a road neither.” We saw it was going parallel to Carefree Highway, so figured we’d take it in what I think was an Avis Plymouth Sundance. Whole thing was getting SUPER bumpy until we found the damn thing washed out from a flash flood. Had to turn back around. The Plymouth made it, but barely.
That bridge was never fun, never seemed safe. Not that far away is the 84-91 interchange in Hartford. Another “traffic engineering” marvel. The Million Dollar Highway in the American Alps in Colorado is vertigo inducing.