Road of Death warning from police …. and a medium

Highway  R402 is the only major road connecting the European part of Russia with Siberia and the Far East, and it is getting an alarming reputation for deadly accidents. 

The stretch between the Siberian cities of Tyumen and Omsk, once the route taken by tsarist political prisoners into freezing exile, is seeing a rising number of fatal crashes. 

'Almost every day media reports about a 'marshrutka' (shared taxi), truck, or a car with children inside driving in the wrong lane and and 'losing control',' said Omsk news agency om1. 

'At the end of June, a Lada Granta crashed into a Toyota Mark II, killing 7 people. A lot of drivers on this highway say it's hard to tell it is so deadly.'

The first part of the road appears 'high quality' and is free of traffic jams. 

'Obviously, not all the crashes are deadly. Yet many of those who survived a crash, avoid the road. Notorious statistics of the traffic police confirms the 'deadly' name of the road. According to the traffic police, there were 98 accidents, 138 people injured, and 33 died over 2014.'

This year the number of deadly cases decreased by 15%.

'According to the traffic police, the main reason of car crashes was driving into oncoming traffic lane (33 of all crashes), next incorrect placement of a vehicle on a driveway (16 cases), not keeping safe distance (12 cases), and speeding (6 cases).'

Two years ago, British rally driver  Emma Wilkinson, 47, was killed when her 1970 Chevrolet C10 collided with a Volkswagen during the Peking to Paris rally. The driver and a child in the other vehicle were killed. 

The news agency asked local medium Mikhail Nevsky to explain the reasons for the road becoming an accident black spot. 

'Having scanned Tyumen-Omsk road, I realized that it's not an easy highway,' he said. 'There are some abnormalities crossing it and forming short distances of a dangerous or 'cranky' path, but in some places they take up huge parts of the highway, forming gigantic energetic whirlpools, fatal areas.

'Any vehicle is in high danger. When a person drives into an abnormal zone it feels like he's being distracted, their brain is in some way 'blurring' the picture, so later people say 'I haven't seen that car' although weather conditions were perfect. 

'Our ancestors knew of such places, this is where they built chapels. The best protection for such places has always been a prayer. Journey are a very unpredictable thing, so it's important to secure the support of higher forces.'