Years ago - 1976, I think. I was at the Edinburgh Festival with a friend; we decided at the last minute to rent a car and drive up to the Isle of Skye. I hadn't driven standard shift in decades, and there was the opposite-side-of-the-car/road thing. Travelling companion didn't drive. Things started off interestingly as we were incorrectly exiting the car rental parking lot, hiccuping our way down an entrance ramp. Cops coming the other way weren't too pleased. Eventually made our way through the morning rush-hour traffic and out of the city. The highway was a bit easier and eventually we got on to one of those small country roads mentioned by an earlier poster, with little indents called passing places, where you pull over to let oncoming cars go by. I was beginning to feel a bit more confident. Near Loch Ness, we parked by the side of the road to pick some heather. Didn't notice the large bumble bee that was also enjoying the heather. Got back into the car, closed the doors and windows, and the bumble bee got trapped between me and the back of the seat. He objected in the classic, if suicidal, manner of bumble bees. It was a cool day; I was wearing a thick pullover with a denim jacket over it. The stinger went through all of that and somehow hit a nerve that hurt all the way to my chest, and numbed my left arm. Not good. Left arm needed to operate floor-mounted gear shift. I didn't think I was allergic to bee stings (turns out I'm not) but this was alarming. Companion was absolutely unable to help, having never even attempted to drive a car. Fortunately we were very close to a small inn, which had room for us. I took a Benadryl just in case I was allergic, and crashed for the rest of the day. Travelling companion retrieved the bee, which she said was the biggest one she had ever seen. We resumed our journey the next day and everything was fine.

1. At night on I-81 in Penn. during spring snow-fog-sleet storm. That interstate wanders on the top of the mountains there in many places, which puts it into low-ceiling clouds during storms. We were going 1 MPH, and I was leaning out the passenger's side looking for signs of where the side of the road was, because we knew there was a sharp drop-off down the side of the mountain, and I was calling out "left, left, right right" to DH driving. But the snow and fog were too thick and even when we came up to an exit sign, it was covered in snow and couldn't be read. We got off anyway, although it was harrowing to try to see where the ramp actually was. Just by descending a hundred feet or so, we got out of the fog/cloud and snow to just drizzle.

2. On an overnight bus from Dubrovnik to Skopje in former Yugoslavia. The route wound up and down the Montenegran Alps and there were times I was sure our outside front wheel was hanging out over thin air. Each time we stopped at a town, the driver would ask where we were (I understood that much of the language) and get directions, after which he'd down a pint of beer. There was a co-driver/bus attendant buddy who handed out plastic baggies that I thought was for trash until people in the back began to get sick in some of the places. The driver did eventually get lost and wandered over the then-closed Albanian border. Some fierce Albanian officers boarded the bus, checked passports, and chewed out the driver before making him turn around and go back.

Toward dawn when we came out of the mountains closer to Skopje, the driver began to drive maniacally and forced a car off the road at high speed. The car flipped over, but the bus driver wouldn't have stopped if everyone on the bus hadn't yelled at him to do so. It turned out, however, that when the ones who got off and went running to the overturned car, they just came back telling everyone else "no blood" and "the guy fell asleep." And we were on our way again, listening to the song "Delilah" in Croatian on the radio over and over and over again.

----- Seems to me, by the way, that the moral of this whole thread is to stay away from mountain roads, no?

We've got two, actually...

1977, while in grad school, we decided to drive through a blizzard from Amherst, MA to Toledo Ohio, on the theory that we were going into the storm, so we'd pass through quickly....WRONG.

On I-80 near Wilkes-Barre, PA, at about 10 at night in a driving blizzard we came upon an iceberg in the middle of the highway! A big piece of ice, about 3 feet tall had fallen from the underside of a semi. I swerved, missed it, did a 360 or so, and followed the nearest glow in the snow to find a hotel to wait out the storm.

1980, driving from SFO to Boston, pulling a trailer full of our worldly possessions. In Driggs, Idaho we stopped for gas and asked the friendly attendant if we should drive south around the Tetons or go over Teton Pass into Jackson. He told us that the pass was a cinch.

Well, about 1/2 mile from the top I had the pedal to the floor, we were going 15 mph and SLOWING DOWN!

I had to do a 9 point turn to reverse direction on the switchback and get back down.

Later that night, much to our dismay, we found out that Driggs was a dry town...

I have to agree with a previous poster about Costa Rica. My OMG drive was the one from Quepos in Costa Rica to San Jose in a Suzuki Samarai with the floor boards rotted out (rental). The road is not paved (my boyfriend at the time had broken his tail bone in Belize so I had to drive while he sat on a "borrowed" pillow from the hotel). Need to go over a small river or gulley? Just take the two planks. Don't mind the medium sized rocks imbedded in the dirt road. And those two planks that get you over a gulley? They also use them for bridges over large rivers. Ugh! Try lining your car up with those after breathing fumes (remember-floor boards with holes) for hours. But the most frightening was watching the school buses manuvering the same planks. Thank God my kids were not on those buses. But-viva Costa Rica-the nicest people in the world!

Connor Pass in Dingle, Ireland was a little hairy, but well worth the views, esp. from the lookout at the top. You're much better off with a standard shift car for that one!

Anytime I get into the car with my husband, and riding in the mountains with our driver in Costa Rica.

Any stretch of I-95 in any state. Period.

Although my most nerve wracking is probably the lovely road that leads up to my grandmother's house in Vega Baja, PR. It's basically a very narrow 2 lane road circling high up around a mountain for what seems like ages with NO GUARD RAIL! One wrong turn and you're going to land 100 feet below on top of someone's house. Add in that most of the drivers drive like maniacs, and you get the idea.

In terms of the US, the worst was the Top of the World Highway in Alaska. We were warned it would be bad and it was. The Canadian part was paved and OK, but when we reached the Alaska border, it was not only dirt, but incredibly dusty -- you had to keep major distance to see at all. In addition, they were doing major construction and you couldn't go over about 15 miles an hour without pounding your car to bits. All this would have been tolerable if it were a beautiful drive. But I don't think the scenery would make my top 25 list.

I can't believe no one has mentioned the road to the top of Mt. Evans in Colorado. I remember taking this drive with my parents on a family vacation back in the early 80's. I must've been about 10 at the time. The hairpin curves with a cliff wall on one side and sheer drop-off on the other (no guard rails, of course) had me cowering on the backseat floor for most of the trip.

The absolute worst though, was meeting another car and having to pass on the drop-off side of the curve on a road that was really only a lane and a half wide (with a crumbly edge to boot!). Staring out the right-hand window it was almost as if we were driving on air. I still remember pleading with my dad to slow down and I'm sure we weren't even going that fast, LOL. For years afterward I had nightmares about sailing off the edge of that road, with my dad laughing in the front seat telling me to relax!

Amalfi was difficult, our driver had to reverse and back down at one point because of a small oncoming truck. He also had to pull in his mirror to get around a curve into a roadhouse. The man was skilled, a genius.

Jerome was worst for me personally. I can't believe you did it on a bike.

I've gotten immune to horrific sights on Borman and several other Chicago expressways. Last fall saw a PT Cruiser lose it's entire back half going onto an exit lane in Indiana. It was a huge 16 wheeler, of course. The man lived and was not critically hurt. Truck tires unraveling everywhere etc. We pray, literally.

Atlanta (the expressway that goes stright across town) a very honorable mention.

Worst in our main driver's viewpoint, and not mine- almost everything on the east coast of Florida, especially near St. Augustine. We saw two over the medium and across to on-coming traffic episodes (both with trailers and one disconnecting as well) within a two hour period. We got off. He will drive everywhere out west etc. and refused to drive in FL now.

It will probably be tonight, in a cab, heading down 5th Avenue in the snow. :P

Sept '02 driving from Beatenburg to Zermatt (well, to the train to Zermatt) in snow, ice and dense fog.
The 6 sp MB C 180 K was great, but the traction control was worn out after.
SO went home a week early after that experience.
M

You know, I don't count the fog, ice, snow, and stuck in the snowpile pushed into the left-hand turn lane occurance without anyone slowing down coming straight-on that happens about twice weekly for about a 1/3rd of the year on my fairly long commute.

I guess I really am a Chicagoan, a Northern, and for life. I know I am.

Black ice and white ice both, so much fun. You can actually fly in a Saturn, but it isn't too good on the radiator when you land. I know.

Driving into the center of Orta San Giulio on a Sunday afternoon in August in our rented Mercedes station wagon. We weren't aware that thousands of people from Milan and all around would be descending on this tiny little town on this particular Sunday afternoon. Our first clue should have been all the cars parked along the road leading into town. But no, we had to get to the town square to drop our luggage at the hotel. So here I am, trying to drive this large vehicle through an increasingly narrow corridor (a better description, I think, than 'street') with hordes of people walking the other way and looking at me like I was nuts. Mind you, I was only going a couple of miles per hour, but at one point I had a near meltdown fearing 1) the car would get stuck because it was simply too wide for the space, or 2) another vehicle would come the other way and I would have to back up. I was very lucky that the only damage I did was cracking the side mirror reflectors on the walls. I finally made it, but there was no question that mr_go would be driving it back out of town to the main parking lot and that I would be making a beeline for the nearest place to have a drink.

There have been a couple of harrowing drives recently on the Chicago area expressways during snowstorms, including one in January where at one point I was driving in blowing snow and looking straight into the setting sun at the same time. Because of highway construction on I88, lanes were narrower than normal. With the snow, it was impossible to see lane markings. Semis were throwing up slush on the windshield. And everyone was going 60-70 mph. I eventually peeled my knuckles off the steering wheel.

I actually enjoy driving many of the US mountain roads many posters have commented on. I lived in the mountains west of Denver for a few years. My home was actually about 3 miles and 1,500 feet in elevation off the pavement at the 9,500 foot level. One of our recreations was to head out on the gnarly dirt roads and mountain pass roads. I would, however, avoid "Oh My God Road" after dark if I had a choice.

My two most harrowing drives have both been on interstate highways.

The higway into Chicago from Gary has to be the most congested with heavy trucks I've ever seen.

The highway from Boston to Manchester, NH, was also pretty scary with several people going past lined up traffic in excess of 100mph on the shoulder. I couldn't help wondering where they were going in such a hurry.