Dead Man's Curve

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Dead Man's Curve is the unofficial but commonly used name for a nearly 90-degree turn on Interstate 90 near downtown Cleveland, Ohio. It links the Cleveland Memorial Shoreway to the Innerbelt Freeway, just south of Burke Lakefront Airport. The curve is known as a particularly dangerous stretch of the Interstate system. The advisory speed is 35 miles per hour (60 kilometers per hour), although the legal speed limit is 50 mph (80 km/h) as on adjacent sections of the Shoreway and Innerbelt.

The curve was built as part of the Innerbelt project in 1959. It soon became apparent that the curve was too sharp for Interstate traffic. In 1965, the state lowered the speed limit from 50 mph to 35 mph. Four years later, authorities completed the first set of safety retrofits, which included banking the curve and installing rumble strips and large signs.

The original plans for Cleveland's Interstates called for I-90 to follow the Memorial Shoreway to Cleveland's West Side, then cut south to the Northwest Freeway. The Northwest Freeway runs from Cleveland's northwestern suburbs to Interstate 71 south of downtown. However, the spur from the Shoreway to the Northwest Freeway was never built, leaving through traffic no option but to use Dead Man's Curve or exit the freeway system. As a result, 95,090 vehicles travel on the curve every day, according to a 2003 Ohio Department of Transportation count.

According to ODOT, the crash rate on the Innerbelt, including Dead Man's Curve, is two to three times the regional average for urban freeways, despite the reduced speeds on the stretch. The department is investigating ways of enhancing safety on the stretch, including making the curve less sharp.

[edit] Other uses

Other English-speaking towns also have a "dead man's curve" – a dangerous section of highway that has taken countless lives. One is in Los Angeles, on Sunset Boulevard, and was immortalized in the 1964 top ten Jan and Dean drag-racing song "Dead Man’s Curve".

I-90 is not the only Interstate highway to have this feature.

Another "dead man's curve" exists on Interstate 83 (aka the Jones Falls Expressway) in Baltimore, MD,^[1] although Baltimoreans never refer to the curve as such.
A series of "dead men's curves" can be found on I-76 (Schuylkill Expressway aka the "Sure to Kill Expressway" or "Sure-Kill Expressway") in Philadelphia.^[2]
Interstate 20 contains a dead man's curve just east of the Birmingham, Alabama airport, at its junction with Interstate 59; engineers were forced to build a sudden curve into the highway to avoid a cemetery.^[3]
A sharp bend in Columbia Parkway (US 50) east of Cincinnati, where the east-west highway abruptly turns north.^[4]

"Dead Man's Curve" is the term in popular use by helicopter pilots when referring to the Height/Velocity Curve, a chart within the Helicopter Operations Manual, which outlines the safe combination of height and velocity to maintain safe operation in the event of engine failure. Given enough altitude, at an appropriate speed, a helicopter should be able to autorotate (act as a gyroplane) safely to the ground should such an engine failure occur.

Dead Man’s Curve – The Tyrants of Twang are a London Surf band

Dead Man's Curve is also the alternate title of the film The Curve.