5 Of The Most Hazardous Commutes In The World

Image courtesy of Alicia Nijdam-Jones

When asked to consider what would constitute a truly awful commute, many of us would conjure up an image of cramped, stuffy carriages on delayed trains, or being trapped on a bus where the driver believes he’s Sebastian Vettel and your fellow passengers seem to have escaped the asylum.

But there are people whose commute to work actually endangers their life and makes our mundane quibbles seem like the first-world problems they actually are. Here are five of the most hazardous commutes in the world. Prepare to be shocked.

1) Tokyo’s Trains

Those of us who work in London, heck even those who have visited London on the weekend, know that the underground is a crowded and pungent place that makes you feel a little bit grimy every time you come out of the tube station- well in Tokyo, times that feeling by 10 and you might start to get an idea of the living hell that is their train system in Japan. In London, you may be uncomfortably close to a sweaty man’s armpit on the tube, but in Tokyo, there are men who are hired to forcibly push people onto the train (imagine a hand pushing your body actually into the sweaty man’s armpit as part of a good day’s work). As well as the super cramped conditions, there is also a massive problem with ‘train gropers,’ people who use the anonymity of an overcrowded train to grope and sexually assault their fellow passengers.

2) The Amur-Yakutsk Highway (Russia)

We Brits are never too timid to moan or complain about a potholed road. Compared to the Amur-Yakutsk Highway, though, it is about time we Brits went skipping through the streets and start kissing the roads we are so eager to put down.

Built in stages from 1925 to 1964, the Amur-Yakutsk Highway is essentially a mud road. Acting as the only entrance into Yakutsk, it is known to be incredibly hazardous during the extreme seasonal conditions in Russia, especially when summer comes around and the mud becomes so soft that it will literally swallow small vehicles whole.

3) Zip-Lining To School in Los Pinos (Colombia)

Pretty dangerous and pretty awesome at the same time is the way that the children in Los Pinos, Columbia get to school every day- on a gravity-defying zip wire! The village of Los Pinos is situated on one side of a ravine, with the local school on the other side. But rather than build a road that leads to this tiny village, planners just stuck a zip-wire up there instead. The zip-wire is also only monitored and maintained by locals, rather than zip-line experts.

4) Guoliang’s Tunnel Road (China)

Even cycling to the station to catch your train can sometimes feel too arduous to attempt. But at least you’ve got a road to cycle down. Try living in a small Chinese village, cut off from the outside world that has no roads leading into it and is surrounded by unyielding mountains. We really don’t appreciate what we’ve got sometimes, do we?

In 1972, a group of 13 Guoliang villagers began carving a road into the side of the Taihang Mountains in order to allow people to commute to and from the village. Several of the villagers died during its construction and it’s horribly narrow in places, yet there’s beauty in the way it snakes in and out of the mountainside. Like the North Yungas Road, the tunnel has no protection from the tumbling abyss below and in so doing has seen many fatal accidents.

5) Luxor-al-Hurghada Road (Egypt)

No one likes it when an angry driver decides to challenge you, getting up in your grill and threatening you with their dangerous driving. Amazingly, that would be a walk in the park compared to what the Luxor-al-Hurghada Road will throw at you.

Driving along this road at night with your headlights would seem sensible, but the Luxor-al-Hurghada Road is so notorious for its bandits that you’d be safer traveling blind rather than advertising your whereabouts. But even scarier than this is the ‘high risk of terrorism’ that this road has now become known for. In 1997, a group of 62 tourists were stopped on this road and gunned down by terrorists, resulting in a government crackdown which is still ongoing even today.

As you can see, we actually have it a lot easier than some people when it comes to commuting.. So next time you find yourself grumbling about the traffic or the uncomfortable seats on the bus, remember these hazardous commutes and just smile. Just don’t smile too much, because that breaks all the rules of public transport.

Do you know of any other hazardous commutes that do not feature on this list, or perhaps some facts and experiences to go along with the locations listed above? If so, please comment down below!

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Ben Kettlety is a writer and occasional traveller, whose most dangerous journey involved a power boat, turbulent waters and a sick bag. He recommends The Accident Specialists.