Doubtful. That chart compares only 17 countries.
Conundrum: I've never been to Alaska. What is the longest you have to drive between towns, state police stations, 24 hour truck stops, etc.? Days? Is there any way you could plan your trip so that you don't have to sleep in isolated places?
On the way up through Alberta, British-Columbia, the Yukon, about the most between towns is maybe 2 hours but many of them are so small they don’t even have a gas station or a grocery store. It’s just a couple of houses and buildings.
Once you are out of Alberta (if you are coming from the East and driving North-West) and enter BC it becomes a different world. There are no “24 hour truck stops”. In fact, there are exceedingly few 18 wheelers going up through Northern BC, the Yukon or into Alaska. Alaska is supplied by ships and has an extremely efficient Maritime Highway. It covers from Bellingham near Seattle to Kodiak and every tiny little community and of course Juneau, the capital of Alaska, and Anchorage, and so forth, in between. Everything perishable is delivered by air, which is why things like fresh strawberries cost a fortune. Contrary to the rest of the US where half the vehicles seem to be 18 wheelers, they are rare up there.
If you are coming from the South (Washington State - Montana) you will be taking the Cassiar highway and you’ll be a little lonely especially if you go early or late in the season. BC has 140,000 black bears and maybe 2,600 cream/white Kermode bears and some days you’ll see more of them than people.
Miscalculated again. Came in too early.
Black bear mother with a Kermode cub
I have learned from a couple of close calls never to let my “remaining gas mileage” go below 200 miles. You never see police cruisers up there. I am always amazed that in 9 road trips up and down (one time I came back on the Maritime Highway- Haines to Prince Rupert)), I’ve never seen a police car.
Outside of main cities Canada just does not have much of a police presence at all. In this last trip a month ago through all of Labrador and driving nearly a thousand miles in Newfoundland, I only saw one police cruiser.
No, I cannot avoid stopping to sleep in isolated places because I drive to and through isolated places. For example I want to go to Yellowknife. It’s 3,668 miles away from my doorknob. In the NWT. This will mean many isolated nights.
A correction is in order though. When I asked for advice and recommendations for safety equipment and mentioned feeling fearful at night; it is not when I am in the most isolated spots in Northern BC or the Yukon that I feel vulnerable. It is when I am in towns and outskirts of towns, when and where there is a modicum of human activity.
For example a stretch where I always feel uneasy is between Amarillo TX and Albuquerque NM. On I-40.
Arriving in NM very early in the morning.
New Jersey below makes me feel so uncomfortable.
Manhattan seen from NJ
I got lost somewhere near Chicago, took wrong turn, wrong exit, could not find my way back to the highway, the signs were gone. For a while I felt for sure my last hour had arrived. A couple of gunshots were going to put a stop to my roaming up and down someone else’s neighborhood.
Miami has bad areas, Louisiana, California has so many, Atlanta, places you would not suspect, Wyoming, AZ, Wisconsin, it’s all over the map in the US. These are the places where I become paranoid when I stop for the night. Not Kitimat, BC.
Kitimat, BC
) I guess Portland (Oregon) can be sketchy but I have not visited there in a few years.
