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I always try to avoid the GSP as much because I think it's one of the most dangerous highways around here.
A lot of sharp turns, steep corners, and elevation changes. Huge difference in speeds between the lanes. You can be going around 65-75mph on one lane and next to you a few cars going just below 50mph as it approaches exits huge bottlenecks occur because certain exits always jam up more often than on the Turnpike.
The exits near the border of Central and South NJ is super tricky as some sections go from 5 to just 3 lanes splitting with express and local. There are deep ditches on either side, if anyone loses control of their car and careens off road they will most likely flip the car and cause death.
GSP also has a lot more Police patrols than the Turnpike which adds another thing to watch for, speed traps.
During the day, the GSP is just a mess to drive near Parsippany and Newark area, huge bottlenecks everywhere.
The lanes are also very narrow, sometimes it looks like I'm going to take out another cars side view mirror. Maybe it's because I'm used to I80 and turnpike where lanes are wider to accommodate tractor trailers.
Of all the roads I travel in NJ, I80, I280, I287 and I78 the turnpike, the GSP imo has the WORST drivers
No, I meant heading towards there via the GSP. That part going to the East Orange and Newark is always heavily congested during workdays and also dangerous with heavy bottlenecking along the right lanes and cars flying by on the left.
The reason why it's the deadliest as I forementioned that many sections are extremely difficult to navigate due to the tight sweeping turns, elevation changes, and lane splits that causes congestions.
The speed trap is simply having spots where police setup lasers pointing at elevation changes to catch speeders going over. They cause more problems because once drivers come up on the speed trap they immediately slow down causing cars behind them to mash the brakes. I don't think speed traps work and you never see police setup speed traps on straights where people really do speed due to open straight roads. It's always a blind spot somewhere so it's essentially a meal ticket than actually preventing speeding.
I once mentioned to my wife that a curvy section on the GSP looks so dangerous that if you lose control and run into the medium you'll be crashing into a supporting wall of an underpath. It's very common for cars to lose control on a racetrack with similar curve configuration but you never see a concrete barrier. I can imagine if someone ever gets cut off and run off the road it'll be fatal.
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