US-285: The Death Highway of New Mexico and West Texas

Why the Permian Basin's primary supply corridor has earned one of the most grim nicknames in American trucking

The stretch of US Highway 285 running through southeastern New Mexico and into West Texas is called the Death Highway. It is not a marketing name or a dramatic exaggeration by journalists — it is what the people who live along the route, the emergency responders who work it, and the drivers who haul freight on it call it. The name reflects a statistical reality: this corridor has produced a per-mile fatality rate that places it among the most dangerous rural highways in the United States, and the primary reason is the Permian Basin oil boom.

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