The World's 10 Most Dangerous Roads

1. The North Yungas Road, Bolivia

Built by Paraguayan prisoners of war in the 1930s, the North Yungas Road, which locals call the “Road of Death,” snakes across roughly 40 miles of the Andes in northeastern Bolivia. In 1995, the Inter-American Development Bank named the La Paz to Coroico route “the world’s most dangerous road.” And for good reason. The unpaved road is bordered by 3,000-foot cliffs. More than 100 travelers die every year trekking the route’s hairpin curves











2. BR-116, Brazil

The second longest road in Brazil, BR-116, runs from Porto Alegre through Curatiba and Sao Paulo, all the way to Rio de Janeiro. The Curitiba-Sao Paulo section of the highway is nicknamed “Rodovia da Morte” (Highway of Death). The name fits. The road runs around--and even through--the edges of steep cliffs. The result: “accidents and road fatalities are distressingly common,” as one travel advisory puts it.










3. Sichuan-Tibet Highway, China

In China, the number of deaths caused by car accidents has nearly doubled in the past 20 years, climbing from 3.9 to 7.6 per 100,000 of the population between 1985 and 2005. During this time, the number of cars on the road increased ninefold, and the number of other vehicles, principally motorcycles, jumped by a factor of 54. Government statistics show nearly 82,000 road deaths--5.1 for every 10,000 motor vehicles--in China in 2006, according to the Xinhua News Agency. Ironically, the least populated regions had the highest overall death rates per 100 000 motor vehicles. The Sichuan-Tibet Highway, a high-elevation road between Chengdu and Tibet where landslides and rock avalanches are common, is undoubtedly part of the problem.





4. Pan American Highway, Costa Rica

The Pan American Highway, a network of roads that stretches nearly 30,000 miles from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in North America to the lower reaches of South America, is the world's longest "motorable road," according to Guinness World Records. Although only a small portion of the road runs through Costa Rica, that portion boasts some of the most dangerous miles. Called the Hill of Death, the stretch of the Pan-American Highway from San Isidro de El General to Cartago is a gauntlet of narrow curves, steep cliffs, flash floods and landslides








5. Coastal Roads, Croatia

The good news for the droves of tourists pouring into the fishing villages and sea resorts that crowd Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast on the Adriatic Sea is that they don’t need to worry about land mines. The detritus of a decade of ethnic warfare that ended with the breakup of the former Yugoslavia is far from the narrow, congested and curvy roads along the coast, which brings us to the bad news. The coastal roads and the fast-driving Croats that crowd them probably account for more deaths and injuries than accidents associated with unexploded ordinance ever do.








6. Cotopaxi Volcan, Ecuador

Traveling to Ecuador? Be careful, the roads are dangerous, and the most dangerous of them all is one many tourists unwittingly travel. Slightly south of capital city Quito, the Cotopaxi Volcan Road is a 25-mile span of treacherous dirt road that connects the Pan American Highway with Cotopaxi Volcan national park, which boasts the highest active volcano in Ecuador at 19,460 feet. The “road” is plastered with potholes and runs through a nightmarishly deceptive “stream” that puts the “flash” in flash floods when it rains. Add poorly maintained cars and poorly trained drivers, and you’ll appreciate the trials and tribulations of a drive in the jungle.








7. Luxor-al-Hurghada Road, Egypt

The road that links the ancient city of Luxor in southern Egypt and Hurghada, the regional hub for several scuba diving resorts on the Red Sea, is a death trap. The vast majority of drivers never turn on their headlights after the sun goes down, setting the stage for the high accident fatality rate that has earned the road a spot on this list. Ironically, the only thing more dangerous than driving on the road at night with your headlights off is driving at night with them on. If the bandits don’t get you, the terrorists probably will. In 1997, terrorists shot and killed 62 German tourists in Luxor in a massacre that resulted in a massive government crackdown that endures today.







8. A44, U.K.

The A44 runs from Oxford to Aberystwyth. The two-lane road has tallied enough accident fatalities and serious injuries in recent years to earn the ignominious honor of having government surveillance cameras installed to deter speeding and otherwise encourage cautious driving. And on a road where more than 25% of crashes on are head-on collisions, caution is well advised.










9. Patiopoulo-Perdikaki Road, Greece

Although the Ottoman Empire occupied Greece for 400 years, they never conquered a small mountainous region in central Greece called Agrafa. They had the military fire power and political will to do so. They simply didn’t have any way to get there. The roads were as dangerous in the steep, mountainous region then as they are now.











10. Grand Trunk Road, India to Afghanistan

The Grand Trunk Road was built in the 16th century to connect the major cities of India with those of Pakistan and Afghanistan. It hasn’t changed much since then, but the world around it has. The road is chronically congested with ox carts, animals, bicycles and pedestrians and massive numbers of cars and buses.