The World’s Most Dangerous Roads include Bolivia’s “Death Road”, the Trans Siberia “Ice Road”, China’s “Road of No Mistakes”, and Brazil’s “Rodovia da Morte”. These infamous highways are known for their treacherous conditions and the lives that they take each year.

The World Health Organization’s 2013 status report on road safety added three American highways to the list of the World’s Most Dangerous Roads. These highways include Alabama’s “Highway to Hell” (yes, it’s a real place), Alaska’s James Dalton Highway, and the Pan American Highway.

The Highway to Hell

U.S. Route 431, a 353 mile stretch of road running from the Alabama-Tennessee line down to Dothan, Alabama,  claims the lives of more than 33,000 people per year. Why? The main hazards include poor visibility, speeding and sudden 2-4 lane changes. This killer combination becomes even more deadly with poor decision making, such as driving blindfolded. FYI, it is now officially illegal to drive blindfolded in Alabama. Seriously. Look it up.

The James Dalton Highway

The James Dalton Highway, aka “Haul Road”, kills roughly 2,889 drivers annually. That might not sound like a lot, but considering that it’s more than 300 miles north of the North Pole, there’s not exactly a lot of traffic up in these parts.

The road passes through boreal forests, across the Yukon river and the Arctic Circle, over the Brooks Range mountains, the Continental Divide at Atigun pass, and then through the tree-less North Slope tundra to the Deadhorse and the Prudhoe Bay oilfields near the Arctic Ocean.

Along the way, vehicles often get stranded due to killer pot holes, icy accidents and flat tires. Gravel portions are infamous for kicking up debris and cracking windshields. In the spring and summer, drivers are advised to keep spare windshield wipers and several gallons of windshield wiper fluid handy for insect swarms. And, to top it all off, there’s no cell phone service, so it’s best to keep a satellite phone or CB radio handy when driving this treacherous highway.

They say the views are spectacular, though.

The Pan-American Highway

Aka the World’s Longest Road, this highway is actually a network of roads about 30,000 miles in length. It connects nearly all the mainland nations of the Americas, running from Alaska down to Argentina.

The writer Jake Silverstein put it best when he described the highway as “a system so vast, so incomplete, and so incomprehensible it is not so much a road as it is the idea of Pan-Americanism itself”.

The most hazardous road conditions include high temperatures, landslides, steep drop-offs, livestock crossings and impassable sections during the wet season.

These life-threatening commutes are not for the faint of heart, and certainly not for novice drivers. They have joined the list of The World’s Most Dangerous Roads, so think twice before turning down one of these highways.