Colorado Scenic Drive Named Most Distracting Road in U.S.

A new national ranking names 48-mile-long Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park the “most distracting road” in the country. There’s no question that Trail Ridge, which connects Estes Park with Grand Lake and is the nation’s highest continually paved road, is visually stunning. But there is some question about how this latest list was compiled.

According to the report, which studied the 615 National Scenic Byways, “the most visually distracting” equates to “the most potentially hazardous for drivers.” But then, the rankings were done by Shane Smith Law, a personal-injury firm that operates in Georgia and the Carolinas, and they put a dark spin on Colorado’s bucolic beauty.

The would-be statisticians who performed the analysis for the ambulance chasers used Tripadvisor reviews and ratings to determine the superlatively beautiful scenic byways, and correlated those beauty standards (“visually striking or have memorable features”) with an inherent danger level for drivers (“these qualities increase the likelihood of distracting drivers and drawing attention away from the road”). But we’re not buying this causation theory without some accident and injury data, which the survey does not provide.

Construction on the road, eight miles of which are above 11,000 feet with a peak at 12,183 feet, began in 1929 and was completed in 1938. Snowplows begin clearing the route for drivers in April every year, taking an average of 42 days to clear the byway.

Because of hazardous winter conditions, Trail Ridge Road always closes for the season in the late fall; last year it was off limits as of October 25, according to the National Park Service. Trail Ridge Road has already closed temporarily because of bad weather this month, and even though Rocky Mountain National Park is open during the federal shutdown, the hotline for road conditions — 970-586-1222 — hasn’t been updated since October 11,

According to the study, Trail Ridge Road received 3,490 reviews on Tripadvisor with an average rating of 4.88; the second-most visually distracting and potentially hazardous road in the U.S. was Loop Road in South Dakota’s Badlands, with an average 4.85 rating.

Colorado is home to eight of the roads on the top 50 most visually distracting liar: Number 19 is the Million Dollar Highway stretching from Ouray to Silverton in the San Juan Mountains, which is so distracting it claimed three lives this summer; Number 26 is Kebler Pass connecting Crested Butte with Paonia; Number 39 is Pikes Peak Highway, from Cascade to the peak’s summit; Number 44 is the treacherous, prisoner-built Skyline Drive in Cañon City; Number 47 is Guanella Pass in southwestern Clear Creek County; Number 49 is South Rim Road along Gunnison National Park’s Black Canyon; and Number 50 is the Peak to Peak Scenic Byway, between Estes Park and Blackhawk.

Enjoy those distracting views, but exercise caution while gawking behind the wheel at Colorado’s awesome scenic drives. And if trouble should occur, there’s a personal-injury firm ready to help.