Which is more dangerous? Turnpike or Parkway
Here's a trivia question for you:
Which road is safer? The New Jersey Turnpike or the Garden State Parkway?
I discovered the answer while researching an editorial on the way the Turnpike manages accidents.
The answer, much to my surprise, is the Parkway. I have always considered the Turnpike more dangerous - all those trucks, the tedium of its straight-line engineering, what seems like narrower lanes and narrower shoulders, etc.
But over the past five years, the Parkway has averaged about 35 fatalities a year, compared to about 25 a year for the Turnpike. The Parkway is longer than the Turnpike - about 173 miles compared to 148 - but the Turnpike has far more volume. And even adjusted for the greater length of the Parkway, the Parkway is more dangerous.
Does that surprise you, too? Do you feel safer on the Turnpike than the Parkway?
Which road is safer? The New Jersey Turnpike or the Garden State Parkway?
I discovered the answer while researching an editorial on the way the Turnpike manages accidents.
The answer, much to my surprise, is the Parkway. I have always considered the Turnpike more dangerous - all those trucks, the tedium of its straight-line engineering, what seems like narrower lanes and narrower shoulders, etc.
But over the past five years, the Parkway has averaged about 35 fatalities a year, compared to about 25 a year for the Turnpike. The Parkway is longer than the Turnpike - about 173 miles compared to 148 - but the Turnpike has far more volume. And even adjusted for the greater length of the Parkway, the Parkway is more dangerous.
Does that surprise you, too? Do you feel safer on the Turnpike than the Parkway?
posted by Randy Bergmann at 11:16 AM
2 Comments:
I always use the CAR ONLY lanes when I am on the Turnpike. If I am going to get in crash, I want it to be a fair fight, so to speak, and a truck weighing 80,000 lbs is a whole lot bigger than what I am driving.
Very surprising indeed. The 66 miles from exit 7A to the southern end of the Turnpike are the most frightening miles I have ever traveled in my life.
Maybe the Parkway accidents are clustered? Do most of those accidents occur in the narrow-laned southern portion of the Parkway?
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