Sifter

A recent Dateline report, “Dangerous Roads,” utilized the fatality statistics compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System to find out which roads were America’s most dangerous and, more important, what made them so dangerous. Of course alcohol and speeding were huge factors, but so were roads designed without pedestrians in mind—without streetlights, sidewalks or median strips. Below is a list of Butte County’s most dangerous roads. (Only roads with two or more instances in any contributing factor are included below. Numbers reflect only the portion of road contained in Butte County, and are the total numbers for the years 1999-2003.)

Road 1* 2* 3* 4*

Hwy 70 14 2 30 6

Hwy 99 12 2 11 5

Hwy 32 5 0 5 3

Hwy 149 5 0 0 1

Hwy 162 4 0 9 4

Skyway 3 1 7 2

Durham-Dayton Hwy 3 0 2 3

Durham-Pentz Road 3 1 3 1

Midway 2 0 4 0

Larkin Road 2 0 3 0

Palermo-Honcut Hwy 2 1 2 0

Old Ferry Road 1 0 2 0

Oroville-Bangor Hwy 2 0 0 0

Mangrove Avenue 0 2 0 0

Esplanade 0 0 2 0

1*=Total fatal accidents on undivided, two-lane highways

2*=Fatal accidents involving pedestrians

3*=Fatal accidents as result of speeding

4*=Fatal accidents involving drinking drivers

According to the NHTSA’s stats, in that same five-year period (1999-2003), a total of 171 people died in car accidents in Butte County.

For more info, check out: www.msnbc.com/modules/tvnews/dtl_dangerousroads2005/form.asp and www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/