Dead Man's Curve

Dead man's curve is a nickname for a curve in a roadway that has claimed lives because of numerous traffic accidents. The term is in common use in the United States.

United States

Alabama

California

Dead Man's Curve (disambiguation)

A dead man's curve is a stretch of road that has claimed a number of lives.

Dead Man's Curve may also refer to:

Dead Man's Curve (song)

"Dead Man's Curve" is a 1964 hit song by Jan and Dean detailing a teen street race gone awry. It reached number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

According to the song, the race starts at Sunset and Vine between a Corvette Sting Ray and a Jaguar XKE, traveling on West Sunset Blvd. going west, passing North La Brea Ave., North Crescent Heights Blvd., and North Doheny Dr. The original Schwab's Drug Store was located just east of Crescent Heights on Sunset. The North Whittier Drive curve, a nearly 90° right turn traveling west on Sunset Boulevard just past North Whittier Drive, may be the dead man's curve in the song, but there is debate on the actual location of the curve. Jan Berry, of Jan & Dean, would later have a near-fatal incident in 1966 when he crashed his own Sting Ray into a parked truck on North Whittier Drive outside a house once owned by Roman Polanski near (not on) Dead Man's Curve.

The song was written by Brian Wilson, Artie Kornfeld, Roger Christian and Jan Berry at Brian Wilson's mother's house in Santa Monica. It's regarded as a teenage tragedy song, one of the most popular of all time. The song ends with the driver of the Sting Ray relating his last memories of the ill-fated race to a doctor. Crash-like sounds as well as screeching brakes are heard in the song. Deadman's Curve was used as the title for the 1978 biographical nationally televised movie about Jan and Dean.