Route 19/84 to skip Interstate 45 from Houston to Dallas

I drove today from Houston to Dallas, and there were several accidents reported on the i45, and just by using Google Alexa I heard what Google says " For over a decade, I-45 has been nicknamed the "deadliest highway in Texas", as well as the most dangerous highway in the United States"!

Anyway I saw how the traffic was building up, the Google Map reported a 10-11 minute delay but I know sometimes this could easily turn into 40-50+ min delay, with all the crashes there (two were reported around 1-2pm today).

So I took a different route I saw on the map, even though Google Maps didn't suggest so, aftet the Veterans Memorial Way which is a side road to the i45 – I went onto Rotue 19, towards Trinity, then Lovelady, then Elkhart.

From Elkhart I took route 84 back to the i45 (through Fairfield), just for about 40-50ish miles on i45 and then finally to the destination in Dallas without this annoying highway.

The whole "delay" from the original time was about 20 minutes, but I'm pretty sure staying on i45 with all the car crashes and accidents would have yielded a much longer time and wait…

Has anyone taken this route before or this is something that most of you never tried?

I also have to mention the scenery and the roads were great and beautiful, it's so much better to drive on these roads than on the i45.

What do you think?

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