When I was a kid, afore I-40 was built in NC, back when highway 54 was one of two ways you could go east past Durham on the way to Raleigh, I heard a story about Lowes Grove, NC.
Lowes Grove was not always part of Durham, as it is now. It used to be a town all by itself. The center of Lowes Grove was the intersection of Highways 55 & 54. Everyone from Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Burlington and Chapel Hill, going to the Morehead City area for the weekend, either took Highway 70 north of Durham, or Highway 54 south of Durham, on their way to Raleigh and points east. There were no bypasses and no east bound interstate. You had to go right through downtown Raleigh and out South Saunders Street to go east.
The little town of Lowes Grove saw a ton of traffic going through it's intersection at Highways 55 and 54. When there was an accident at that intersection, traffic backed up for a mile or more. When there was a fatal accident, the Highway Patrol used a stencil to paint a skull and cross bones on the road. There were quite a few fatal accidents at the Lowes Grove intersection of highways 55 & 54, so there were quite a few skull & cross bones.
When they all started to blend together, making the intersection looked like it had been painted white, they decided to stop doing that. After I heard this story, as a kid in the back seat of the station wagon, I got a wee bit antsy when we approached Lowes Grove. Travelling on two lane Highway 54 was dangerous back then, and the intersection of Highways 55 & 54 was a death trap!