Relax, it’s not a real-time video.
YouTube poster SpeedyYellow has uploaded footage of a drive on Oatman Road, aka Route 66, just west of Kingman, Ariz., to the small town of Oatman in the Black Mountains. The footage runs at double speed “so you don’t have to sit here all day,” the poster writes.
The posted speed limit on Oatman Road varies, but it’s usually about 25 mph — for good reason. You can see the wrecked cars — casualties of the road’s many switchbacks — in the bottoms of ravines as you drive there.
It’s sort of like a roller-coaster ride, isn’t it?
I’m sorry — you couldn’t pay me to watch that video. I was on that hair-raising road in July, and there’s no way I’m reliving it. All you dare devils and driving nut knock yourself out, though.
Why did Route 66 take this perilous route? Wasn’t there an easier, cheaper, safer, more efficient way to get from point A to point B?
Excellent questions.
The answer to the first question: Because there was a prosperous gold mine on that road just a few miles from Oatman, and commerce dictated that a U.S. highway go through there.
The answer to the second: Not at the time. The Yucca cutoff wasn’t built until the 1950s.
I ws involved in a sertious hit and run rollover on that road 23 October, anyone drive that road Tuesday night October 23rd between 7pm and 11pm?
That road is ace, would be better in a European car I reckon. The person driving in that video sure has some skill.
Sixty years ago I road this stretch of road in the back of a then-ancient 1934 Ford. (Mechanical brakes, no power steering) It remains the most remembered 15 minutes of my life!