The most dangerous mile of highway in the entire U.S. has been revealed – and it’s more than 50 times deadlier than the national average.
Research conducted by Elk & Elk personal injury law firm pinpointed a harrowing segment of Interstate 95 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where a total of 24 people have died between 2010 and 2019 in 23 fatal car crashes.
The data found that while the typical highway has roughly 0.0083 deaths per mile, this dangerous mile-long freeway in Fort Lauderdale averages out at 0.479.
‘If you were to drive through it at 60 miles per hour, you would pass the site of a fatal crash every 2.6 seconds,’ the joint study, which was done in collaboration with 1Point21 Interactive digital agency, revealed.
Highway I-95 is the main north-south route on the East Coast, running nearly 2,000 miles from the Maine-Canada border all the way down to Miami.
The treacherous segment of I-95 is between Marina Mile Blvd (State Road 84) and I-595, both of which run east to west.
Many of the most horrible accidents involve drivers exiting onto the ramp of Marina Mile Blvd at high rates of speed, unaware of the sharp 90 degree turn ahead of them.
The study also blames the complexity of the interchanges in this area for the shocking number of fatalities.
One of the most recent tragedies in this vicinity was a six-car chain reaction crash in February that claimed the life of a 23-year-old woman named Yanaisa Pulido.
A driver of a red Kia Forte traveling south on I-95 near Marina Mile Blvd lost control and hit the concrete median, causing a black Mercedes-Benz SUV to strike it from behind, WSVN reported.
Driving close behind in her black Kia Forte, Pulido stopped off to render aid since she was a trained EMT and a former cadet in the Hialeah Fire Department.
Pulido was struck by a silver Cadillac ATS before she could help the injured and was later pronounced dead at the scene.
Three others suffered major injuries, including a seven-year-old.
Months before this in November 2023, a Nissan Altima crashed into the back of a tractor trailer sending it careening into the center median where it flipped over and burst into flames.
The driver of the tractor trailer died, while the woman behind the wheel of the Nissan survived the wreckage, WPTV reported.
In May 2021, there were two serious, non-fatal accidents within two days of each other where drivers lost control and plunged twenty feet off Marina Mile Blvd’s entrance ramp to I-95.
One car fell and landed upside down, WSVN reported.
Two pedestrians have also been killed within the deadly one-mile stretch this year, with one woman falling off an overpass and getting struck by multiple cars in May.
Just last week, a Cadillac SUV hit and killed a 43-year-old black man crossing an I-95 exit ramp.
To cut down on the fatalities, Florida officials have long planned to add ‘speed warning signs with flashing beacons’ among other safety measures as part of an interstate improvement project.
Although the Federal Highway Administration allocates funds to improve interstate highways, individual states are in charge of maintaining the portions of road within their borders.
DailyMail.com approached the Florida Department of Transportation to see what, if any, accident mitigation strategies have been pursued.
The study also examined the deadliest 10-mile stretches of road in the US, concluding that Houston and Dallas are some of the most hazardous for drivers.
Houston takes the number one spot with Interstate 45. Between exits 49B and 60A, there have been 148 deaths between 2000 and 2019.
Over the same time period, five separate stretches of interstate highways in Dallas killed a staggering 639 people over that same time period.
A separate analysis from Consumer Affairs confirmed that Texas is the most perilous state for motorists, with nearly 4,500 people dying in car wrecks in 2021 alone.
California, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina rounded out the top five least safe states.
Even though car crashes can happen anywhere, experts urge people to drive slower and without distractions especially in urban areas, where there is more traffic and more complicated on and off ramps.
‘On America’s deadliest stretches of road, a little extra speed can make the difference between life and death,’ the authors of the study warned.