There’s a road in New Mexico with such a genius way of stopping drivers from speeding that it’s become a landmark
Published on Feb 15, 2026 at 2:37 AM (UTC+4)
by Claire Reid
Last updated on Feb 13, 2026 at 5:03 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Kate Bain
Officials in New Mexico came up with an unusual way to combat speeding: a musical highway that plays America the Beautiful, but only if you drive over it at a certain speed.
A section of the iconic Route 66 near Tijeras in Mexico was fitted with special rumble strips that play the tune if you stick to the speed limit.
The musical road has become a tourist attraction, with folks coming from all over to hear it for themselves.
Sadly, after more than a decade, the rumble strips have fallen into disrepair, so the tune doesn’t sound like it used to – and its future is unclear.
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The smart speeding solution was introduced more than a decade ago
Back in 2015, the New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT) joined forces with National Geographic to introduce a musical road to a stretch of Route 66.
At the time, National Geographic said it was part of a study to see if it would curb speeding.
“It was to test if people could go 45mph, do the speed limit, along with listening to a song,” NMDOT’s public information officer Kimberly Gallegos told KRQE in 2024.
In a smart bit of road engineering, the strips were precisely placed so that when a car passes over them at 45mph, the vibrations produce the notes of America the Beautiful.
The special rumble strips helped turn an otherwise unremarkable section of Route 66 into something a little bit special, and it quickly drew tourists in, with some motorists even turning around to give it another go.
However, following several years of use, some drivers said the song had become distorted, and in 2020, officials removed signs for the musical highway, making it harder to find.
It’s unclear if the road will be repaired and the rumble strips restored.
Speaking to the Albuquerque Journal in 2020, Gallegos said NMDOT had ‘no plans to restore the musical highway,’ leaving its fate up in the air.
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New Mexico isn’t the only place to find a ‘musical highway’
New Mexico isn’t the only place you can find a musical highway.
In California, there’s a stretch of road in Lancaster that plays the William Tell Overture if you drive over it at the correct speed – although it reportedly sounds very out of tune these days, too.
Hungary also has a ‘singing road’ located on its Route 67 between the city of Kaposvár and the M7 motorway.
That road plays 67-es út, which translates to ‘Route 67’, by Hungarian rock legend László Balázsovits and his band Republic.
And just last year, Türkiye opened its own musical road, which plays Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turcai or Turkish March as you drive down it.
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With a background in both local and national press in the UK, Claire moved to New Zealand before joining the editorial team at Supercar Blondie in May 2024. As a Senior Content Writer working on New Zealand Standard Time (NZST), Claire was the first writer on the team to make the site’s output a slick 24/7 operation covering the latest in automotive news.
