The Treasure Valley Is Home To One Of America’s Deadliest Roads

There is a lot to be said about Boise drivers. There have been plenty of jokes about how bad we drive. At least one camp believes the roads were perfectly safe until the Californians showed up and another thinks our roads are the problem.

Could our roads be better? Sure. Could we drive better? Sure. But when you look at the data, we're better than people say. When it comes to deadly roads, the country of Chad has everyone beat, where the death rate for car accidents is over 32%.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the deadliest highway in America is I-95. It runs north and south along the East Coast through New York City, Boston, Baltimore, Jacksonville, and Miami. A road that long, through that many big population centers is bound to have a ton of fatalities. 14.88 per 100 miles, to be exact.

You're probably familiar with the sixth worst highway for fatalities, especially if you take road trips to Montana, Las Vegas, or Southern California. I-15 has just over 11 deaths per 100 miles, most of them occurring between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. I-15 is named Veterans Memorial Highway, and it runs through Idaho from the Montana State Line at Modina Pass to the Utah State Line in Woodruff.

When you break down deadly crashes to a ten-mile stretch of road, you really get a good idea of dangerous roads. In Idaho, the ten-mile stretch of road that sees the most fatalities is one you might drive every day on your commute to and from work in Boise. According to Seattle Law Firm Elk + Elk, Idaho's deadliest stretch of road is the ten miles between Caldwell and Nampa on I-84. According to the study, there have been more than 38 fatal accidents in those ten miles and more than 42 deaths since 2000.