- Aug 2022: ADOT repaving (not widening) on this exact corridor, near Oracle Junction and Oracle/Mammoth. Copper Area News.
- Feb 2018: fatal crash near Oracle, driver ejected while passing, sideswiped a semi (Dakota Allen Roth, 20). PinalCentral.
- Jan 8, 2018: two-vehicle fatal crash at milepost 92, just east of Oracle Junction, road closed in both directions. KGUN9.
- Aug 2025: head-on crash at milepost 102 (Oracle), one fatality (Jeffrey Stinnett, 61). KOLD.
Outside the target segment, listed for completeness
Oct 4, 2025: three-vehicle fatal crash at SR 77 and Eagle Crest Drive in Catalina. KOLD. We include this because it’s on SR 77 and was widely reported, but it is not evidence for the case this site makes: Catalina is south of Oracle Junction, inside the section ADOT already widened, and this was a red-light collision at a signalized intersection, not a passing or head-on crash on a two-lane road. Counting it toward the Oracle Junction to Mammoth corridor would be misleading, so we don’t.
A disputed claim, included here for transparency
A Dec 31, 2025 Copper Area News article, “Highway 77: Rural Roads, Real Risks” by Elise Godoy, claims “eight fatalities and 11 crashes this October alone” on this corridor, citing “the latest 2024 ADOT Crash Facts Report.” We do not use this figure, for two reasons. First, the citation is internally inconsistent: a 2024 annual report cannot contain October 2025 crash counts. Second, the federal fatal-crash record for this corridor (NHTSA FARS, on our Traffic & Engineering Data page) shows a maximum of 3 deaths in any single crash and nothing close to an 8-death month in any year from 2010 through 2024. To be precise about what that does and doesn’t prove: FARS does not yet cover late 2025, so the October 2025 claim is unverified rather than disproven. We’ve asked ADOT for the records that would settle it. We list the article here, not hide it, because local press attention to this exact bottleneck is itself relevant. We just won’t repeat a number we can’t verify.