Bad-Luck Stories Abound On Oddly Named Road

In the 8000 block of Good Luck Road, Chessman Peña's parked truck was struck from behind by a speeding motorist. Twice. The second time, two months after the first, the driver fled the scene.

The question must be asked: Just how lucky is Good Luck Road?

Peña, who lives on the street in Lanham, said he'd like to think it is lucky. But after the two crashes and the struggle to collect insurance money, he's not so sure.

"I'd say that was bad luck," the 39-year-old landscaper said.

Good Luckeans, as they might be called, are accustomed to delivery people, visitors and telemarketers asking whether living on the unusually named street brings good fortune. As a group, they are split.

Crime and seemingly freakish accidents make some residents of the seven-mile stretch -- a hilly avenue that winds through Hyattsville, New Carrollton and other Prince George's County communities -- marvel at the irony of the name.

Some say the street is deserving of the name it appears to have inherited from a 19th-century crossroads known on maps of that period simply as Good Luck.

Jacqueline Murray, director of the Good Luck Community Center, has embraced the motif, decking out the facility with images of horseshoes and shamrocks.

"The craziest good things happen on the road," she said. "Things just happen that would never happen."

She always seems to hit the jackpot, she says, when she buys decorations for the center. For the graduation ceremony at the on-site preschool, she found balloons that said "Good Luck Graduate." One parent thought she had them custom-made.

But over the years, the street has become a fixture on the police blotter. Since the beginning of 2006, it has appeared in The Washington Post's weekly crime report all but nine times. Since 2000, there have been 132 car thefts and 123 robberies on Good Luck Road, records show.

And as much as the name evokes laughter, some incidents on the street have been nothing short of tragic, including three homicides.