On Deadly Route 666, The Real Devil Is Alcohol

ON THE DEVIL'S HIGHWAY, N.M. - People die too often on Route 666. Fifteen or 20 times a year, someone will pass out in the middle of the road, stumble across the asphalt too slowly, or stagger in front of an oncoming truck.

For a stretch of highway 135 miles long - cutting straight and true through the Navajo reservation and over country so lonesome and desolately beautiful it seems apart from anyplace else - the death statistics are dramatic.

Some people say they speak to the deadly consequences of alcohol abuse. Others believe that only bad things can happen on a roadway marked with the Sign of the Beast.

"It could have a different name - anything that could be done to reduce the number of fatalities and accidents would be good," said Tom Arviso Jr., managing editor of the weekly Navajo Times in nearby Window Rock, Ariz. "Even if it means just changing the name of the road, it would make people feel better.

"It is a dangerous stretch of highway, and I'm not sure why," he said. "A lot of it has to do with alcohol abuse, but there've also been these things that have occurred out of nowhere, on a flat stretch of road, where people lost control of their vehicles and just wrecked and died - just unusual things where you would least expect them to happen."

A troublesome number

The power of "666" to frighten and repel is well-documented. Traced to an ominous passage in the Book of Revelation - "Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man - his number is 666" - it promises the eventual appearance of an Antichrist.

Route 666 was constructed in the 1930s and 1940s and received its number innocently enough, as the sixth roadway to be built directly off old Route 66. In 1992, however, the state of Arizona moved to abolish Route 666 within its boundaries, renaming the portion that ran south to match connecting Route 191.

A citizens petition drive is under way to rename the rest of Route 666, which begins in Gallup, N.M., and runs north 85 miles to Shiprock, then cuts across the southwest corner of Colorado to Utah.

Many of the residents along Route 666 say they try not to be superstitious. With the passing years, however, the significance of the number was not lost on the imaginative, and a sinister nickname evolved: the "Devil's Highway."

So strong is the Satanic association that the road played a small role in the controversial Oliver Stone movie, "Natural Born Killers."

"I don't like it out here; it gives me the creeps," said trucker Allen Rochester of Alice, Texas, who was driving from Laredo to Salt Lake City and stopped for a weight check in Shiprock. "It's a beautiful road, nice asphalt, great scenery, but I'm glad when I can get off it."

The problem is alcohol

Always a spiritual place to the Navajo, this is the country popularized by author Tony Hillerman, whose mystery novels feature Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, Navajo tribal police officers exploring the caves and canyons in search of outlaws - or ghostly apparitions.

It's also the country of DWI checkpoints, and outside Newcomb stands this warning, "You Booze and Cruise, You Lose."

The extent of the alcohol problem here is evident in New Mexico state police records. The two counties traversed by Route 666, McKinley and San Juan, rank as the most dangerous counties in New Mexico to drive in, based on alcohol-related accidents, said Lt. Faron Segotta of the Gallup station.

In this land where many people cannot afford a vehicle and hitchhiking is commonplace, pedestrians are involved in about 75 percent of the 15 to 20 traffic fatalities each year on Route 666. Many have been drinking.

But DWI arrests are also rampant. In McKinley, a county of about 65,000 people, police arrest nearly 2,500 intoxicated drivers a year, Segotta said, compared to Albuquerque, population 600,000, where there might be 10,000 annual DWI arrests.

In the Route 666 area, alcohol-related arrests have increased every year since 1989 by 20 to 25 percent, Segotta added, and police devote long hours to sobriety checkpoints, special patrols and alcohol-awareness programs.

But Segotta dismisses any connection between the troubles and superstitions surrounding the highway, as does the Rev. Jay McCollum, a community leader who is pastor at the First Baptist Church of Gallup.

McCollum said he thinks the tragic events on Route 666 are a matter of "personal responsibility, the choices people make."