San Bernardino County this week found itself claiming another title of unwanted distinction, as a Texas-based personal injury law firm’s completion of statistics of traffic mishaps nationwide over the last three years found that the span of Interstate 15 within the county qualifies as the most dangerous stretch of highway in the United States.
Dallas-based Angel Reyes & Associates performed a comprehensive examination of the most recently available data compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to determine which highways in America have had the highest number of fatal crashes over a 36-month period. It has now released a list of the top 100 highways ranked in descending order based upon the number of deaths.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Fatality Analysis Reporting System, the 80 deaths on I-15 in San Bernardino County, a primarily desert route over which, on average, 207,811 Southern California residents travel to Las Vegas every week, with nearly two-thirds of those on Fridays and weekends, amidst constant freight hauling trucks and heavy passenger vehicle traffic on the weekends, makes it far and away the most dangerous highway in America.
I-15 stretches from San Diego at its southern end moves northward through San Diego and Riverside counties and then makes a 189-mile run through San Bernardino County to Nevada, cutting through a 29-mile tip of Arizona and then stretching northward through Utah, Idaho and Montana, terminating upon crossing into the Canadian province of Alberta.
For the vast majority of its duration through San Bernardino County, I-15 is a divided highway, with only minor segments that are not yet upgraded to interstate highway standards and which involve traffic moving in opposite directions being side-by-side. Nevertheless, the relentless cavalcade tourists, commuters, semi-tractors and trailers, dangerous desert conditions featuring extreme heat and blinding sun glare, occasional steep grades, together with high speed limits for passenger vehicles which tempt some drivers into aggressively seeking to overtake the cars and trucks ahead of them routinely creates hazards that manifest into fatal mishaps. According to the California Highway Patrol, the I-15 long ago established itself as one of the Golden State’s most dangerous corridors, with especially risky conditions around Victorville and Barstow and between the two cities, a stretch with hundreds of potholes and numerous examples of uneven pavement, along with the corridor from Barstow to Baker, where the seemingly interminable straight alignment promotes speeding. A manifestation of daytime summer heat can be tire blowouts.
The amount of traffic at peak times on late Friday afternoon and early evening headed northeast to Las Vegas and on Sunday afternoon and evening headed west to Southern California  leads to dense traffic, congestion  and at times substantial and unpredictable surges in volume. In the latter case, this can be exacerbated by driver impairment and fatigue, brought on by drinking, high-intensity gambling and late nights or a lack of sleep over the preceding two days.
The closest deadly competitor to the I-15’s 80 fatalities was the I-10 Freeway in Maricopa County in Arizona, with 57 deaths. The I-10 Freeway in San Bernardino County’s neighbor to the south, Riverside County, captured the dubious third-place prize, with 54 deaths.
San Bernardino County managed to score another place on the traffic fatality registry, as the I-10 in San Bernardino County ended up in a seven-way tie for 41^st on the list, with 26 motorists who met his or her end there.
The I-15’s status as not just a long-distance means of travel but a commuter route for those living in the many of the cities, towns and communities between the Cajon Pass and Barstow, where there are weekday rush hours in the morning and night as residents there commute to and from work in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area, contribute to the overall problem. The differing attitudinal, awareness and patience factors between drivers familiar with the routes they take every day and those setting out or returning from Sin City revelry can prove problematic on the highway, where the goal is to reach or exceed 60 miles per hour and maintain that momentum.