Kentucky’s Bert T. Combs Mountain Parkway Is One of America’s Most Feared Roads

Although it's been more than three decades since then, I still have memories of navigating U.S. Highway 23 in eastern Kentucky during a 1989 road trip. It's a beautiful drive, but it's also mountainous and curvy, and it kept me on my toes. It does not, however, occupy space on a list of the nation's most-feared roads like another Kentucky byway does.

The Bert T. Combs Mountain Parkway -- a 'Feared' Kentucky Route

Not very far from U.S. 23 is where drivers can encounter the Bert T. Combs Mountain Parkway.

This is the highway I was talking about. It's one of the 10 most-feared routes in the country, according to a report published by Florida dealership Gunther Mitsubishi.

How Feared Is the Bert T. Combs Parkway?

The study surveyed 3,000 drivers, and the results are listed state by state--one road for each state. And Kentucky's 60-year-old Bert T. Combs Parkway comes in at #6. Explanations are provided for the top five on the Gunther website, so we don't get one for the Combs Mountain Parkway.

The Bert T. Combs Mountain Parkway Expansion Project

What we do know is that the folks surveyed aren't the only ones concerned about the "treachery" of driving the Combs Parkway. Since 2015, the 75-mile-long highway has been undergoing a huge construction project in order to make it more modern and comfortable to navigate.

Perhaps that road work explains the parkway's placement on the Gunther list. Combine twists, turns, and mountains, and you have a road--beautiful as it is--that may be a little too daunting for enough of the 3,000 polled to rank it #6 in the survey. (By the way, I've driven the top-ranked highway, the one in New Mexico. It earns its placement.)

But I will say that the work crews are doing on Combs Parkway should mean it will either come off this list or drop precipitously in the near future.

In the meantime, overcome your fears, and enjoy it. It's in an extraordinary part of Kentucky.