Kentucky Parkway Listed Among the Nation’s 10 Most Feared Roads

I know very little about the 1977 thriller Sorcerer, except for the poster and the film's trailer. Both spotlight this terrifying scene.

It gave me anxiety as a kid, and I still feel a little twinge, even today. I was reminded of it a decade ago when I was driving a rented vehicle on a narrow road in New Mexico. One side was a mountain; the other, a straight drop of unknown distance. And it wasn't a great road to begin with. We were trying to visit an old ghost town, but gave up (the ghost?) and found a way to turn around and put that desire out of our minds.

Scary Highways

That tiny two-lane did not make the list of the most feared roads in America, as tallied by Gunther Mitsubishi, but another New Mexico stretch on which I've traveled did. It's U.S. 285, and it's the top-ranked road on this list. I've driven it south of Roswell, and it is desolate, which might be an understatement.

Kentucky's Scariest Road?

A little farther down the list, you'll find the Bert T. Combs Mountain Parkway, ranked #6. While it could hardly be described as desolate (we have a lot more foliage in Kentucky than they do in New Mexico), it sports enough concerns to give it a high ranking on Gunther's survey.

While only the top five came with explanations, I can guess that the operative word here is "Mountain." The Combs Parkway sends drivers across mountainous terrain and has mostly been a two-lane road since it opened in 1963.

Mountain Parkway Upgrade

However, there's reason to believe the parkway could be removed from lists like this because of the widening project that has been in the works for a decade and is expected to be completed by 2027.

When you're driving through the mountains, you want as much elbow room as possible. Oh, wait, that's the wrong body part. I meant shoulder room.