Teens’ Risky Joyride on Tail of the Dragon Ends with One Flying Out the Window
PSA: Take the South’s most dangerous road seriously.
Driving a little too fast on curvy mountain roads is one thing, but barreling down Tail of The Dragon with people hanging out of your windows and swerving wildly is totally different. One young girl recently found that out the hard way when she was thrown out of a speeding Nissan Sentra on the ultra-curvy stretch of Highway 129, near the Tennessee-North Carolina border.
Vehicles cross the road’s centerline fairly often, especially cyclists working hard to round the Dragon's sharp corners, but the driver in the video appears to be doing it out of sheer recklessness. After a few curves, a girl that's said to be 17 years old falls out of the passenger side of the car and tumbles violently into a roadside ditch.
It’s unclear how fast the Nissan was traveling when she fell, but commenters on the video say that the driver pulled back around and picked her up before heading out. The US129 Photos Race Team posted the video on Facebook and declined to comment on her condition.
The Tail of The Dragon slithers its way along the Tennessee-North Carolina border and in just eleven miles, it features 318 curves, many of which are blind and without guard rails. Since it's part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, there’s no commercial development along the road. That means that, other than the threat of a head-on collision or falling down the cliff to your death, there's no danger of other vehicles pulling out in front of you. The road is a popular destination for thrill-seeking drivers and riders of all types, but its popularity and curves have led to a number of serious crashes and deaths over the years.
Hopefully, idiocy of this level doesn't resurface. The video itself is on its way to viral status, so that should serve as some kind of warning to the general public, at least.
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