Reply #2: Highway 666, which has just had its name changed , [View All]

goes from Gallup NM up through the east end of the Navajo Rez. It has the distinction of being the deadliest stretch of road in the US due to all the drunk driving crashes of folks on their way home from Gallup after partying in the dozens of bars and heading back to the dry Rez still blotto.

My own feeling is that the road would be safer but the kids would still be at risk if drinking were legal and people could kill themselves drinking at home. However, the tribe has decided otherwise and it's their decision, not mine.

(This isn't a slam against Navajos, who are some of the finest folks on the planet, but it's a statement of fact about a dangerous road and the bars that make it that way. Alcoholism doesn't hit a higher percentage of tribal folks than it does nontribal folks, but it does seem to hit them a whole lot harder.)