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THE REGION'S MOST DEADLY ROADS By Chris McKenna and Christopher Mele It was around dusk one autumn day, and the pavement was slick with wet leaves as 20-year-old Kyle Keys drove along Route 211 to pick up his aunt for her college classes. Then, in a split second, it happened: He reached a sharp curve in Deerpark and lost control, his car sliding into the path of an oncoming car. The other driver got off lucky, with only a sore neck. Keys didn’t. He died shortly afterward at Bon Secours Hospital in nearby Port Jervis. That 2003 accident was one of 18 fatal crashes on Route 211 from 2000 to 2005. That series of wrecks also earned the Orange County highway a grim distinction: deadliest road in the region during that six-year period. No other thoroughfare had as many fatal crashes per 100 million miles driven, the Sunday Record has found. A Record analysis of 37 major road stretches also yielded these surprising findings: Consider Routes 42 and 209 in Deerpark, the rugged, western frontier of Orange County. They had three and four fatal crashes, respectively, but that was enough to rank them fourth- and fifth-deadliest, once traffic volume and road distance were factored in. |
1. Orange County Route 211 Fatal Crashes (00-05): 18 Crashes/100 million miles driven: 5.03 |
2. Sullivan County Route 97 Fatal Crashes (00-05): 5 Crashes/100 million miles driven: 4.26 |
3. Sullivan County Route 42 Fatal Crashes (00-05): 9 Crashes/100 million miles driven: 3.98 |
4. Orange County Route 42 Fatal Crashes (00-05): 3 Crashes/100 million miles driven: 3.88 |
5. Orange County Route 209 Fatal Crashes (00-05): #4 Crashes/100 million miles driven: 3.26 |
6. Sullivan County Route 17B Fatal Crashes (00-05): 6 Crashes/100 million miles driven: 3.33 |
Ulster County Route 52 Fatal Crashes (00-05): 4 Crashes/100 million miles driven: 3.26 |
Sullivan County Route 209 Fatal Crashes (00-05): 3 Crashes/100 million miles driven: 3.20 |
9. Ulster County Route 28 Fatal Crashes (00-05): 16 Crashes/100 million miles driven: 3.11 |
10. Ulster County Route 9W Fatal Crashes (00-05): 24 Crashes/100 million miles driven: 2.83 |
11. Sullivan County Route 55 Fatal Crashes (00-05): 4 Crashes/100 million miles driven: 2.68 |
12. Orange County Route 97 Fatal Crashes (00-05): 2 Crashes/100 million miles driven: 2.67 |