I Wouldn’t Drive This (11 Photos)

November 2, 2026

By Vidar

Eleven real roads that look like a bad idea

In western Japan, cars drive up a bridge that looks like a ski jump. It is real, like every road below, and most of them still carry traffic. A few are calmer than the photos suggest. The rest are about as wild as they look.

More: Living on the Edge (15 Photos)

🎢 Eshima Ohashi Bridge — Matsue and Sakaiminato, Japan 🇯🇵

Cars crawling up what looks like a wall over Lake Nakaumi. The apparent steepness is a lens trick: shot from far away with a telephoto lens, the bridge looks vertical, but the real gradient is 6.1% on the Shimane side and 5.1% on the Tottori side.

💡 Commercial Fact: The bridge went viral after a Daihatsu Tanto Custom commercial showed the little car climbing it. At its highest point the bridge is 44 meters tall.

📷 Photo and cover crop: Totti / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

🌀 Tianmen Mountain Road — Zhangjiajie, Hunan, China 🇨🇳

Loop after loop on stone walls, stacked up the side of Tianmen Mountain. Tongtian Avenue is an 11-kilometer road with 99 bends.

💡 Number Fact: The road took eight years to build, from 1998 to 2006. Its 99 bends play on the number nine, which in Chinese tradition stands for eternity.

📷 Photo: “Tianmen Mountain 38183-Zhangjiajie” by xiquinhosilva / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

🏜️ Moki Dugway — San Juan County, Utah, USA 🇺🇸

A gravel road folded down a red rock face, part of Utah State Route 261 near Mexican Hat. It was built in 1958 by Texas Zinc, a mining company, for trucks hauling uranium ore off the mesa.

💡 Grade Fact: The switchbacks drop about 1,200 feet in three miles of graded gravel, at grades of up to 11%, according to the Bureau of Land Management.

📷 Photo: “Moki Dugway, Utah” by Andrew Smith / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

⛰️ Guoliang Tunnel — Huixian, Henan, China 🇨🇳

A rock ceiling overhead and nothing but a low stone wall between you and the drop. Guoliang had no road to the outside world, so in 1972 the villagers decided to cut one, and thirteen of them did the work, mostly with hammers and chisels.

💡 Village Fact: The tunnel road is about 1.2 kilometers long and opened to traffic on May 1, 1977. One of the builders died during the work.

📷 Photo and cover crop: 山海风 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

🌊 Sea Cliff Bridge — Clifton, New South Wales, Australia 🇦🇺

Instead of hugging the escarpment, this road steps out over the ocean and curves along it. The Sea Cliff Bridge opened in December 2005 to replace a stretch of Lawrence Hargrave Drive that had been permanently closed in August 2003 due to regular rock falls.

💡 Design Fact: Roads and Maritime Services picked the $52 million design from 70 entries, and NSW Premier Morris Iemma opened the bridge on December 11, 2005.

📷 Photo: Maksym Kozlenko / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

〰️ Stelvio Pass — Lombardy and South Tyrol, Italy 🇮🇹

Count the bends if you can. The Stelvio Pass climbs to 2,757 meters, and 48 hairpins sit on the northern side alone, each one numbered.

💡 Age Fact: This is not a modern road. It was built from 1820 to 1825.

📷 Photo: Gabri80 at it.wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

🌴 Seven Mile Bridge — Florida Keys, USA 🇺🇸

Two bridges and open turquoise water all the way to the horizon. The newer one carries US 1 from Marathon toward Key West and is 6.79 miles long; the older one beside it was built as a railway bridge from 1909 to 1912.

💡 Railway Fact: The old bridge was part of Henry Flagler’s railroad to Key West. A restored 2.2-mile section is open to pedestrians and cyclists.

📷 Photo: United States Department of Transportation / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

⛏️ Skippers Road — Queenstown, New Zealand 🇳🇿

One lane of gravel, a rock wall on one side and the Shotover River below on the other. Skippers Road was built in four stages from 1883 to 1890 for the gold rush, and part of it was hand-drilled and blasted out of solid rock.

💡 Rental Fact: Many rental car companies won’t allow their vehicles on it. Skippers Bridge, further along the road, has been closed since January 2026 after wires failed in its suspension cables.

📷 Photo: “Skippers Canyon Queenstown (8)” by Bernard Spragg. NZ / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

🧌 Trollstigen — Rauma, Norway 🇳🇴

The “Troll’s Ladder” climbs a steep green mountainside in Rauma. It has eleven hairpin bends and a gradient of about 9%, and King Haakon VII opened it on July 31, 1936.

💡 Season Fact: Snow wins in winter. The road is normally open from mid-May to October or November.

📷 Photo: W. Bulach / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

🪨 Chapman’s Peak Drive — Cape Town, South Africa 🇿🇦

Cut into the foot of an orange sandstone cliff, high above the Atlantic. Chapman’s Peak Drive between Hout Bay and Noordhoek has 114 curves in 9 kilometers; work on it began in 1915.

💡 Rockfall Fact: Falling rocks closed the road in January 2000, and it reopened as a toll road in December 2003.

📷 Photo: kallerna / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

🌊 Passage du Gois — Vendée, France 🇫🇷

The speed limit is 50, and the asphalt disappears under the water. The Passage du Gois links Noirmoutier island to the mainland and can only be crossed around low tide, roughly an hour and a half either side of it.

💡 Tide Fact: At high tide the water over the road is 1.3 to 4 meters deep. Rescue poles stand along the roadside for drivers who misjudge it.

📷 Photo: Florian Pépellin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)