Tourists to the Sound arrive mainly via coach over Milford Road State Highway 94, a high mountain road prone to avalanches in winter. The road was only opened in 1953, after Homer Tunnel was finished after almost 20 years of intermittent work. The road is one of the more dangerous public roads in New Zealand, with injury crash rates around 65% higher than the rest of New Zealand's network, and a fatality crash rate of almost twice average (per vehicle kilometre travelled), making it the third most dangerous section of New Zealand's State Highway network (as of 2008).