Midwest

Interstate 80 is the northern transcontinental freight corridor — 2,899 miles of rolling plains, high desert, mountain passes, and urban sprawl from San Francisco to the New York metro. Most of it is manageable. Two segments are not.

Donner Pass in California’s Sierra Nevada and Sherman Hill near Laramie, Wyoming are separated by nearly 500 miles of Nevada and Utah desert, but they share a common identity: they are the most dangerous truck segments on I-80, and among the most dangerous on any US interstate.

Montana Highway 2 runs approximately 650 miles across the northern tier of Montana from the Idaho border near Glacier National Park east to the North Dakota state line at Williston — a route known as the “Hi-Line” that follows the path of the old Great Northern Railway through some of the most sparsely populated terrain in the continental United States.

It does not look dangerous. That is part of what makes it deadly.

At 3,020 miles, Interstate 90 is the longest US interstate highway — running from the waterfront of Seattle to the streets of Boston. Most of its length is manageable freight territory. But three segments make I-90 a serious winter corridor for commercial drivers: the Cascade passes of Washington State, the open range of Montana, and the Buffalo–Albany snow belt of upstate New York.

Understanding these segments, and knowing how to navigate them, is essential for any driver or dispatcher running the northern transcontinental freight lane.

Michigan’s roads have a national reputation that has transcended trucking circles into popular culture. The state’s infrastructure funding shortfall, combined with one of the most punishing freeze-thaw climates in the contiguous United States, has produced a highway network that truckers and civilians alike recognize immediately. “Michigan, Michigan, and Michigan is pretty bad too.” “I75 in Michigan heading towards Detroit is an abomination.” One trucker reported getting motion sickness from the sustained bouncing on a Michigan interstate. This is the road.