Keep Calm on These Roads! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Abbey Road

Abbey Road is well known thanks to The Beatles. It is a road in London where the Abbey Road Studios are located and is the name of a 1969 Beatles album. On the cover of the album are the four band members walking across the zebra crossing. This has become a popular tourist attraction, with fans trying to replicate the album cover. An Abbey Road webcam was created for the curious to watch intrepid tourists try to beat the traffic on this busy road in order to get that quintessential photo.

Answer: The Disappearing Road

The Disappearing Road is truly an architectural wonder. The dual road and railway bridge connecting Copenhagen, Denmark to Malmö, Sweden is both a bridge and a tunnel. The bridge portion is almost five miles long and starts in Sweden, allowing road vehicles and trains to travel to an artificial island named Peberholm where the two and a half mile tunnel portion begins, allowing passengers to complete the journey to the Danish island of Amager. From a bird's eye view of this marvel it looks like the road disappears into the water, it's truly terrifying and breath-taking at the same time.

Answer: Highway 80

The BR-116 has received the nickname 'Highway of Death' or 'Rodovia de la Morte' due to it's high number of traffic accidents. There is a particular section that includes winding around cliffs and through numerous tunnels that is so dangerous it's recommended to be removed from any tourist information in order to reduce the number of accidents.

Highway 80 runs from Iraq to Kuwait and is nicknamed 'Highway of Death' because it was used by the British, Canadians, French and Americans during a 1991 offensive of the Persian Gulf War. Iraqi forces were retreating along this road and were hit with aircraft and ground assaults, resulting in the destruction of hundreds of vehicles and the deaths of many of the passengers of those vehicles. The attacks were controversial with some stating that there was an imbalanced and heavy-handed use of force resulting in anywhere between 1400 and 2000 retreating vehicles being hit with bombs.

Answer: William Tell Overture

While it sounds like a pretty cool idea and there are several throughout the world, this musical road is a bit of a bust. The idea is that as tires are hitting grooves or rumble strips on the road they cause a vibration that carries a musical tune. The Civic Musical Road was built on Avenue K in California and supposed to play the finale of the "William Tell Overture".

When it was built however there were noise complaints by residents so it was paved over and then there were complaints that it was removed. So it was re-created but on Avenue G instead. Unfortunately there seems to be some kind of miscalculation of the groove width needed to replicate this piece of music as it sounds nothing like it.

Answer: Gate Tower Building

The Ikeda Route, one of the routes of the larger Hanshin Expressway, travels from Osaka to Ikeda and actually has a portion that passes through a building. The sixteen floor Gate Tower Building has no people use of floors five to seven because of the highway offramp passing through it.

The highway makes no contact with the building, it passes through it as a bridge. Elevators passing through these floors do not stop, continuing from floor four up to floor eight, where employees continue to go about their business!

Answer: Atlantic Ocean Road

This stretch of highway in Norway is absolutely dangerous and yet people drive along it to get a very close-up and breath-taking view of the Atlantic Ocean. This road curves and dips as it is pounded by waves and wind and it is the unpredictability of the weather combined with the curving of this road that makes it so dangerous.

There are seven bridges and four viewing areas to stop at and marvel at the view and it is absolutely necessary to do so because you need two steady hands on the wheel at all times to make it on this road. During construction, which took several years, apparently there were twelve hurricanes!

Answer: Stirling Moss

The Stelvio Pass is the second highest paved mountain pass in the Alps and has an incredible seventy-five hairpin turns, making it a very big challenge for motorists. During World War I it was incredibly important and the site of many battles but after expansion in Italy it lost its strategic importance. Now it is used for sports such as cycling, used often in the Giro d'Italia cycling race.

In the 1990s Stirling Moss was participating in a vintage car event on Stelvio Pass and dashboard video captured him driving off the road.

Answer: Bucket of Blood Street

Bucket of Blood street was named because of a bar fight that took place at Terry's Cottage saloon in the 1880s. Apparently there was so much death after a gunfight that took place there that the floor looked like it had been doused in a 'bucket of blood.' There are conflicting stories about what started the fight (poker game gone wrong or a horse that was stolen) but as a result of the fight the saloon changed its name to "Buckets of Blood Saloon" and remained open into the twentieth century but closed down as less and less clientele visited. Now all that remains is the street sign for 'Bucket of Blood' street.

Answer: Lombard Street

Lombard Street has eight hairpin turns in a famous one block section. Tourists flock there, with approximately two million people visiting annually and as many as 17,000 per day during peak summer days. The crooked block is only 600 feet long, is one way downhill and the recommended speed is five miles per hour. Drivers will wait at the top of the hill to get their turn to drive down this famous street.

This section of road has been used in chase scenes in several movies including "Magnum Force" and "Ant-Man and the Wasp."

Answer: Germany

The Nordschleife in Germany is a twenty-two kilometre Grand Prix track that is both used for racing and is open to the public, obviously not at the same time! It is a very popular attraction for car and driving enthusiasts who want to take a spin around the track and although there are drivers who time themselves, racing and speeding is strictly prohibited. Drivers who have crash into barriers are included in the rather embarrassing "Bongard Club" which is a reference to the tow company that is used to clear their vehicles away. Drivers that cause any damage to the track or safety barriers are responsible to pay for the damages but this doesn't defer drivers with a need for speed.