{"id":2189623,"date":"2026-10-10T15:05:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T12:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2189623"},"modified":"2026-10-10T15:05:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T12:05:00","slug":"the-longest-stretch-of-straight-uninterrupted-road-in-the-world-takes-hours-to-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2189623","title":{"rendered":"The Longest Stretch Of Straight, Uninterrupted Road In The World Takes Hours To Drive"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"columns-holder\">\n<div class=\"add-on-google-widget\">\n<div class=\"add-on-google-heading\">Add Jalopnik on Google:<\/div>\n<div class=\"add-on-google-buttons-row\">\n                    <button type=\"button\" class=\"add-on-google-btn\" id=\"preferred-source\">Preferred Source<\/button><br \/>\n                    <a href=\"https:\/\/profile.google.com\/cp\/Cg0vZy8xMXBneTRxX2Zw\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"add-on-google-btn\" id=\"google-discover\">Google Discover<\/a>\n                <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"columns-holder \">\n<p>When most people <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jalopnik.com\/the-most-dangerous-roads-in-the-world-colorado-india-1850835923\/\" target=\"_blank\">picture a dangerous road<\/a>,\u00a0they probably picture a single-lane road precariously perched on the side of a mountain. And while the fear of tumbling down an escarpment is very real, you shouldn&#8217;t be lulled into a false sense of security by flat, straight strips of pavement either. Saudi Arabia&#8217;s Highway 10 features a 150-mile stretch through the Empty Quarter. It&#8217;s the kind of driving environment that will make you zone out behind the wheel, presenting dangers of its own.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Highway 10 appears on satellite imagery as a perfectly straight line cutting across the desert with no settlements of any kind along the way. Traveling at the country&#8217;s 75-mph speed limit, it would take two hours to traverse. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.guinnessworldrecords.com\/world-records\/62919-longest-straight-road\" target=\"_blank\">According to Guinness World Records<\/a>, Highway 10 was originally built for King Fahd, the Saudi monarch who ruled from 1982 until his death in 2005. The road wasn&#8217;t constructed on a whim, though.<\/p>\n<p>The highway links Haradh at the eastern end with the Al Batha border crossing at the western end. Haradh is a hub for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jalopnik.com\/2118819\/saudi-arabia-selling-oil\/\" target=\"_blank\">Saudi Aramco<\/a> near Ghawar, the world&#8217;s largest oil field, which produces 3.8 million barrels of oil a day. Al Batha is Saudi Arabia&#8217;s only border crossing with the United Arab Emirates. The two points are certainly important, but there&#8217;s little commercial reason to drive between the pair, as most oil is transported over land via pipelines.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"columns-holder \">\n<p>It might sound easy to put your foot down and hold the steering wheel straight for 2 hours, but research shows it&#8217;s mentally exhausting. Many drivers will enter a trance-like state colloquially called highway hypnosis. The monotonous environment of straight, white lines can distract people through a lack of sensory input. Zoned-out drivers can unintentionally let their vehicle wander into an oncoming lane or off the road entirely. Paul Watters, the Automobile Association&#8217;s head of transport policy, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/magazine-25216601\" target=\"_blank\">explained to the BBC<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a strange feeling. You&#8217;re not necessarily inattentive but you&#8217;re in a slightly different state. I don&#8217;t think it means you&#8217;re going to have an accident but it means you&#8217;re not completely engaged in the task of driving, so we would advise members not to get distracted like this.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Highway hypnosis tends to go hand-in-hand with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jalopnik.com\/2212286\/drowsiness-long-boring-highways-drowsiness-biggest-enemy\/\" target=\"_blank\">drowsy driving<\/a>. The aforementioned monotonous environment makes it easy to fall asleep behind the wheel. According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/niosh\/work-hour-training-for-nurses\/longhours\/mod3\/08.html\" target=\"_blank\">the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health<\/a>, going a day without sleep is equivalent to having a 0.10% blood alcohol concentration. The best way to avoid sleepy driving situations entirely is to get some rest before driving. Don&#8217;t just pull over for a nap on Highway 10, either, because daytime temperatures in the Empty Quarter can exceed 122 degrees.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Add Jalopnik on Google: Preferred Source Google Discover When most people picture a dangerous road,\u00a0they probably picture a single-lane road precariously perched on the side of a mountain. And while the fear of tumbling down an escarpment is very real, you shouldn&#8217;t be lulled into a false sense of security by flat, straight strips of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,247],"class_list":["post-2189623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-jalopnik-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2189623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2189623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2189623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2189623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2189623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2189623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}