- [Narrator] Buckle up and hold your breath.
You've just detoured into a world of peril.
Danger awaits around every hairpin turn high in the Andes.
- There is no room for mistakes.
It is completely unforgiving.
- [Narrator] And on the deadliest
six mile ribbon of asphalt on earth,
(bomb blasts)
beware the fog and avalanches.
- There's really no second chances up here.
- [Narrator] But if it's thrills you after
punch that accelerator.
- Trust me, there's a ton of adrenaline
going through your body.
- [Narrator] It's too late for a U-turn.
Now you are traveling the world's most dangerous drives
on "Modern Marvels."
(upbeat music)
A grim reality exists every time you get behind the wheel.
Any road can suddenly become deadly.
The next drive you take could be your last,
whether it's road design, the elements or other drivers.
All it takes is one false move.
One of the most dangerous roads of all
of according to many experts lies in Bolivia.
Part of a highway system
linking Bolivia's capital La Paz and Coroico.
It snakes 35 miles through the towering Andes Mountains.
Its official name is the North Yungas Road,
but those who dare to drive it
as well as those too fearful to try
call it El Camino de la Muerte, the Death Road.
(tense music)
Along this narrow strip of dirt
perched over vertical drops of nearly 2000 feet,
(men shouting)
between 200 and 300 motorists perish each year.
(tense music)
Wolfgang Ziegler
has driven the Death Road many times.
- The road is as unforgiving of any road
that I've ever driven on in the world.
The road itself is probably the width of an SUV
and you've got vehicles trying to pass each other.
And the vast majority of the accidents are collisions
where one of the vehicles or both of the vehicles
literally fall off of the sheer cliff that make up the road.
- [Narrator] Since it opened in the 1930s,
the Death Road has claimed thousands of lives
and many fatalities beyond that have gone unreported.
Many of the roads victims have plunged to their deaths
during the winter months when rushing water, falling rocks
and fog make driving conditions even more treacherous.
- In the rainy season, which is November through March,
the road basically turns to slime.
There's a lot of vehicles that slip off
the side of the road in the rain.
- [Narrator] The best bet to survive
this treacherous death trap
is choosing the right vehicle to navigate it.
- You need a four-wheel drive vehicle
and something that has excellent traction.
Be ready for quick maneuvers without over controlling.
Over controlling with no room for error
is gonna get you killed.
There is no room for mistakes.
It's completely unforgiving of any carelessness or neglect.
- [Narrator] In 2006, the Bolivian government
completed this modern safer road to be an alternative,
but hundreds still die every year along the old route
as some truckers still drive here,
including those that deliver goods
to towns that have grown up along the road.
- A lot of these truck drivers
have made their living on this road
and they get paid by how many times
they make this 35 mile trip back and forth.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] And they now share the peril
with thrill-seeking tourists that flock here
for the adrenaline rush of the ultimate driving test.
- It's a world landmark when you travel to Bolivia.
It's like the climbing of Everest when you go to Nepal.
It's bragging rights of having driven
on the world's most dangerous road.
- [Narrator] Thrill-seeking mountain bikers
from around the world, covet those bragging rights too.
More than 25,000 have taken the dare.
However, even cycling is not without risk.
Nine people were killed when an SUV hit a cyclist
and both plummeted 300 feet.
There were are no survivors.
But a road doesn't need blind curves
or hairpin turns to be deadly.
Another of the world's most dangerous roads
lies 8,000 miles from Bolivia
in the war torn nation of Iraq.
It's the stretch of road from central Baghdad
that leads seven miles to the country's main airport.
(tense music)
It's a chilling reminder that danger
can also lurk on a flat paved road
with no sharp turns or precipitous cliffs.
During the Iraq war, a trip on this short span of roadway
seemed like the longest drive of your life.
As a critical traffic artery in and out of Baghdad
for both soldiers and civilians,
it was a prime target for insurgents.
(bomb blasts)
Their weapons of choice, IEDs.
(bomb blasts)
- An IED is an improvised explosive device.
That's where the threat takes almost anything
that they have available such as leftover
artillery munitions, leftover mortar bombs,
or even just packages of explosives.
They'll place 'em at this side of the road,
have some kind of initiation device
and they'll launch that at a target when they see fit.
(bomb blasts)
- [Narrator] IED attacks on the road to Baghdad Airport
happen so often that the road was nicknamed IED alley.
(upbeat music)
To help make driving down this dangerous road safer,
the US Army turned to its experts in Warren, Michigan
at the Tank Automotive Research Development
and Engineering Center or TARDEC.
They spent several years developing armor
for Humvees and other vehicles traversing the road.
This essential technology was developed
to protect troops during the Iraq war.
- The first phase was add-on armor.
We had to provide armor protection, not only just the,
the metal and ballistic metals on there,
but we couldn't completely close the vehicle up,
'cause folks need to operate.
So we had to also develop and integrate
ballistic glass as well to protect our war fighters
against IEDs, small arms fire and those things
that they had experienced on the battlefield.
- Initially, we could just put a piece of steel up here,
but as we needed to go to lighter weight,
we'd go to an S-2 glass, fiberglass combined with Kevlar.
And we actually use for even higher performance
and lighter weight, ceramics.
- [Narrator] For reasons of security,
TARDEC engineers won't go into more detail
about the composition of its innovative armors
or the types of projectiles it uses to test them.
(dramatic music)
(gun bangs)
- We have a number of different types of rounds,
both bullets and fragments that we shoot
(gun bangs)
to see how well an armor design performs
against those particular projectors.
We're looking to balance three things.
It's called the three Ps,
payload, protection and performance.
So as we add protection to a vehicle system
that added weight reduces the payload,
the carrying capacity of that vehicle system.
It also negatively impacts
the automotive performance of the vehicle.
So what we do here at TARDEC is the engineering
and analysis to determine how do you trade off
those three things.
dramatic music
For years, one of the most dangerous roads in the world
was Baghdad's airport road.
Referred to as death road by locals.
Known as IED alley to US military.
A key part of the strategy to protect soldiers
was to neutralize the threat
of the explosive devices themselves.
The first step, deploy troops in a convoy of vehicles
to run a route clearance operation.
Their mission, find roadside IEDs before they explode.
(dramatic music)
(bomb blasts)
On this day, soldiers were training for hazardous duty
at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri.
- This platform that I'm sitting on here
is what we call the RG-31.
We use this platform as front and rear security
to our route clearance formations.
There are some technologies that we developed
to enhance this particular platform formation.
One of those technologies is the mine roller,
and that sits out in front of the vehicle
and anything that is subsurface or buried,
an IED perhaps or a mine.
If it's going to explode,
we want explode it with that roller.
- [Narrator] The RG-31, also sports a powerful camera,
allowing soldiers to identify potential threats
from a distance.
How far, they won't say.
And the route clearance convoy is bolstered
by this battle ready bad boy.
- Behind me what you're looking at right now
is what we call the Buffalo.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] Taller than a tank
and fitted with large armored glass windows.
The Buffalo offers soldiers inside
a wide and strategic range of view.
It also features a robotic arm with a pitchfork like hand
capable of extending to remove suspicious objects
from a road surface
or for digging up IEDs buried beneath a road.
- There are several types of IEDs.
Some are radio controlled, some are command wired.
They have to be aware of all of that,
so that as they come up on something,
they can identify it pretty quickly and easily.
Get it out of there before somebody's injured by it.
- [Narrator] This team in Iraq discovered an IED
just buried off the roadside.
- [Narrator] The team successfully unearthed it.
- [Soldier] We got her out.
- There you go. - We got her out.
- [Soldier] Awesome.
- [Narrator] Soldiers manning the Buffalo
can also deploy a remote controlled robot.
- I can't see inside a culvert.
So I'll unload this one, I'll run it down into the ditch.
Look into a culvert.
If I have a suspected item, then I can deal with it.
If there's nothing there, great.
I put the robot back on the chassis
and we continue our mission.
- [Narrator] However, clearing every IED from the road
to Baghdad Airport and other roads in Iraq is impossible.
And when they would go off,
the dangers went far beyond the explosions.
IEDs can create a gauntlet of sizable craters
that is difficult and dangerous to navigate.
The Army's answer was a concrete mobile mixer.
The next best thing to a concrete plant on wheels,
soldiers from the Army's 230th concrete team move fast
to complete the daunting task called rapid crater repair.
- Typical civilian Ready Mix truck
has to report to a batch plant to receive its load,
to go out and perform its mission.
One of the advantages of the concrete mobile mixer
over a typical Ready Mix truck is that the aggregate
and the pour on cement remain on the vehicle drive.
- [Narrator] Equipped with water tanks,
the mobile mixer can easily whip up a batch of concrete
at the mission site in a matter of minutes.
Then crater repair begins.
It's a race against the clock under threat of ambushes,
and enemy sniper fire.
Soldiers finish the job by signing the new section
of the roadway with their nickname, The Goons.
Then it's off to the next crater.
Even if you aren't driving a war zone,
danger of another kind may await
because when mother nature has her way,
(car screeching)
all bets are off.
One variable can turn even the most innocuous
stretch of road into a death trap.
(dramatic music)
(lightening)
The weather.
On average, more than 6 million vehicle crashes occur
in the United States each year,
and 1/4 are attributed to weather.
(tense music)
Statistically, the deadliest
kind of weather to drive in is fog
and driving in it, could feel like
the most dangerous drive of all.
One with zero visibility.
In this satellite photo,
that's snow draping over 400 miles
of California Central Valley.
It's an especially thick ground fog called Tule fog.
You can imagine the havoc it sometimes triggers
on two of the state's straightest busiest routes
that pass through the region,
Interstate 5 and Highway 99.
- If you were to drive into a thick bank of Tule fog,
you wouldn't be able to see that fence.
(traffic noise)
You probably wouldn't be able to see 10 or 12 feet
and it's 65 or 70 miles an hour.
If there's somebody stopped in that fog
in the lane that you're in, if you're not slowing down,
that's the recipe for disaster.
- [Narrator] California's Tule fog
has triggered several massive and deadly freeway pile ups
including one of the biggest on November 3rd, 2007.
On Northbound 99, the disastrous sequence of events
was set into motion at approximately 8:00 am.
- The first car that drove into the fog bank
drove into it at regular freeway speeds,
probably 70 miles an hour.
Didn't realize that it was gonna be as dense
or as thick as it was.
He didn't slow down until he was in it.
- [Narrator] After entering the dense fog,
the car virtually disappeared from the site of the driver
of an 18 wheeler following close behind.
He never saw the car slow down.
The initial collision set off a chain reaction of accidents
as vehicle after vehicle entered the fog bank and crashed.
(upbeat music)
- There was debris and vehicles scattered from this point,
going back this way, approximately one mile.
There were three different clusters involved in it,
102 to 103 vehicles with 18 big rigs involved.
It actually kind of reminded me of some of the footage
from Desert Storm, the highway to Baghdad,
where they had just bombed out all the vehicles.
- [Narrator] The driver of the first car
into the fog survived,
but two other motorists died and 39 were injured.
An unfortunate phenomenon makes fog-related traffic pile ups
of this magnitude possible.
Many drivers don't instinctively slow down
even when the fog limits their visibility to near zero.
Seeing no fixed points of reference along the roadside
can make them less aware of their speed.
- There's a theory that people are actually speeding up
when they can't see their surroundings
and they can't see how fast they're going.
- [Narrator] California's Department of Transportation,
Caltrans is trying to reduce the danger.
(upbeat music) (phone rings)
- Good morning, TLC, this is Renee.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] Weather stations
and electronic changeable message signs,
help motorists to avoid fog pile ups
by alerting them of conditions and advising caution.
- But an automated system is only as good as the people
driving it wanna obey it.
We've gotta get the people to realize that
when they can't see, they gotta slow down.
(tense music)
Snow causes an average of 150,000 traffic accidents
and kills over 1300 motorists in the US each year.
Winding through 30 miles of the Colorado Rockies
is one of America's most treacherous snowy roads.
- We're standing next to US 550, which is a Colorado highway
that generally runs north and south
between Ouray and Silverton, Colorado.
- [Narrator] Partially because it was built
on the same route as a 19th century wagon trail
leading to Colorado silver mines.
This section of US 550
is also referred to as the Million Dollar Highway.
And every winter nature blankets it with a treasure of snow
400 inches in an average year.
- Average storm is an inch an hour,
but we can get up to six an hour
with a lot of wind, which causes poor visibility.
- [Narrator] Poor visibility and slick icy surfaces
can make a lethal combination.
It's worse on the Million Dollar Highway
because the road is narrow, lacks guardrails,
and has drops of up to 400 feet.
- There are some very steep drop offs here,
and we don't have a place
to anchor the guardrail adequately,
and it helps not to have the guardrail
to be able to clear the snow off the highway.
- [Narrator] The drivers making this dangerous drive
have to worry about more than just
snow falling from the sky.
The Million Dollar Highway is one of the most
avalanche prone roads in the United States.
In the 25 mile stretch between Ouray and Silverton
and then south towards Durango,
there's 70 known avalanche paths
making the highway the highest avalanche road
per mile in North America.
- By far the highest hazards on these passes
during the wintertime are the avalanche hazards.
(dramatic music)
We average hundreds of avalanches
along this road every year.
And unfortunately we've had people killed
just up the road from us here.
On occasion, there's so much snow up here
and so many avalanches that we've either set off
or that have come down naturally
that we have to close the road to all traffic.
- [Narrator] But whether the snow on the road
comes from avalanches or storms,
the Colorado department of transportation's
basic countermeasure to the danger is snow removal.
And not surprisingly,
this prodigious task carries its own dangers.
Over the last few decades,
five workers have lost their lives.
- So when these guys are out plowing
the snow off the highway, the dangers from the avalanche,
you just, you never know when they're gonna,
when the slides are gonna run.
- [Narrator] For these workers,
as well as the motorists who drive here in the winter,
the best defense against danger is caution.
- You need to be very careful and just driving slow
and watching the speed limits and be careful
around all the curves.
There's really no second chances up here.
- [Narrator] One American city has taken great strides,
improving our chances on roads made dangerous by weather,
Houston, Texas.
Here they are no stranger to extreme weather events.
In 2001, Tropical Storm Allison flooded most of the city.
In 2005, Hurricane Rita forced a mass evacuation
and in 2017, Hurricane Harvey caused more than 100 deaths.
But to help cut down on these catastrophes,
Houston operates a special monitoring
and communications facility called Houston TranStar
that helps safeguard its motorists.
It also acts as an emergency management center.
- We monitor over 600 cameras on the freeways.
We have the four main screens here
where we watch tours of the major freeways.
We have over 300 miles of fiber out there
where we're bringing back the information from sensors.
This is our typical weather sensor.
It could be configured in different ways.
For roadway flooding, it has a rain gauge
and a pressure transducer.
We have wind gauges, which measure the wind speed,
wind direction, and also peak wind gusts.
They also have humidity barometric pressure,
and that's mainly for hurricanes and tropical storms.
- [Narrator] Once the sensors collect the data
and analyze it, TranStar relays it to the public
via its official website,
email alerts to registered users
and dynamic message signs along highways.
Whether it's torrential downpours,
heavy snow or dense fog,
there is one universal recommendation
from the transportation pros
when it comes to driving in those conditions.
- If you don't need to go, don't go.
- The best bet is if you can avoid that trip, stay at home,
but if you have to get out and it, you need to be cautious,
slow your speeds down, have greater following distances
and just be aware of the conditions at all times.
- [Narrator] Even when the weather is fine,
a leisure drive can turn dangerous in an instant.
(dramatic music)
On average, dangerous roads in the US
take a hundred lives every day.
(upbeat music)
Making for some of the most dangerous drives
in the United States are without a doubt
two lane and multi-lane highways.
- [Officer] You get to come on over here, ma'am.
- [Narrator] And no one knows that better
than the officers that patrol them.
- You're up here and anybody hits the back of my patrol car.
There's a good chance you're gonna get caught
somewhere in between that car and your car.
I don't want that to happen to you.
Just like that, see, just like that.
- [Narrator] An average of 38,000 people
perish on America's 4 million miles of highways each year
comprising 90% of the nation's
total transportation deaths.
(car skidding)
Even so, highway fatality rates in the US
have dropped significantly over the past few decades.
In 2019, it was just 1.1 fatalities
per 100 million miles driven.
One of the lowest fatality rates in history.
This fatality rate is minuscule
compared to the rates of the early 20th century.
The arrow witnessed its peak in 1909
when there were 45 fatalities per 100 miles driven.
(car horn and crash)
An astronomical 40 times greater than today.
(dramatic music)
The reason, thousands of new inexperienced drivers in cars
lacking today's safety features,
navigating primitive roads.
But the early 20th century also witnessed
the advent of highway hardware,
such as median barriers, guardrails, signposts,
and lane markers that revolutionized road safety.
- Roadside hardware has been around
pretty much since the roadway system was developed,
but we've been able to make roadside hardware better
and better over the years by investing in research
and by investing in technology.
(Crash)
- [Narrator] The Federal Highway Administration
helps test and develop highway hardware.
Since the late 1980s, FHWA engineers have crushed cars,
battered barriers and smashed guardrails
at the Federal Outdoor Impact Laboratory
or FOIL in McLean, Virginia,
all in the name of road safety.
Their test results are then studied
by the National Crash Analysis Center.
(upbeat music)
They used to do all their crash testing this way,
but now they rely heavily on computerized simulations
using virtual models of cars and highway hardware.
They now use real world tests
to confirm their virtual models behave like the real McCoy.
- This track is one of the two major impact facilities
we have here at the Federal Outdoor Impact Laboratory.
Behind me, you see our accelerator
that allows us to do full scale crash testing
over a range of vehicles,
ranging some small cars to single unit trucks.
We can conduct the test at various impact speeds
and we can repeat that time and time again.
- [Narrator] To test how some highway hardware
withstands impacts, engineers use a massive slab of concrete
instead of an actual vehicle.
- Behind me, we have the pendulum test.
The 5,000 pound concrete block that's there now
is basically representing a pickup truck
which when released will hit the guardrail
at 25 miles an hour.
(siren)
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] This test is conducted to determine
how much damage guardrails can take
before they can no longer serve their purpose.
(siren)
(metal rattling)
That purpose is to absorb the energy
and reduce the speed of any vehicle that hits the guardrail
while also keeping it on the shoulder
instead of diverting it back into traffic lanes.
(tires screeching)
The main purpose of highway medians is to provide separation
between opposite directions of travel.
But some states like North Carolina and Washington
have had chronic problems with cars crossing medians
without barriers, and then slamming into oncoming traffic.
One solution widely implemented in the 1990s
was a crucial highway hardware addition,
the cable median barrier.
These cables mounted on posts
not only helped prevent vehicles from breaking through,
but also function like a guardrail,
preventing cars from bouncing back
into harm's way in traffic lanes.
Its impact has been monumental.
- In some cases, it has been 90% effective
in reducing the incidents of head on collisions.
- [Narrator] But the strategic placement of highway hardware
is just as vital to countering danger as it's design.
(dramatic music)
This test car dips beneath the lowest cable of the barrier
placed on the far side of a ditch.
By moving the barrier to the near side of a ditch,
the cable performs as it should,
Even with these safety improvements,
many United States highways are still becoming antiquated.
- Highways and roadways in some of our rural areas,
they haven't changed a lot over the last 50 years,
60 years, 70 years, they're still very windy.
They're still very narrow.
- [Narrator] And they're often plagued by trees,
telephone poles, and other fixtures
set dangerously close to the shoulders.
But the Federal Highway Administration
has engineered to evaluate the perils of these
and other dangerous roads with a highway simulator.
(soft upbeat music)
Drivers sit inside a full sized car
and view an eight foot high display
with a wrap around 270 degree perspective.
Digitally recorded images of actual roads
are visible through the windshield and all door windows.
And strategically placed monitors
act as side view and rear view mirrors,
creating a realistic driving experience.
- And it's interactive.
So when they turn, the scenario turns.
When they stop, the scenario stops.
If they speed up the scenario speeds up.
- [Narrator] The simulator's motion base
creates the sensation of accelerating,
turning and climbing in descending hills.
The goal is to determine how drivers respond to hazards
on dangerous roads, in a safe, controlled environment.
Studying their reactions and habits
allows engineers to assess a road's design flaws
and correct them.
But the simulator also allows engineers
to analyze roads yet to be constructed.
Once trouble spots are identified,
it's back to the drawing board.
Statistically, the most dangerous roads on earth
are in third world and developing nations.
(car horn and crash)
While China and the United States are near the top
of the most dangerous roads list,
today, no country suffers more traffic fatalities
than India.
India accounts from more than 85%
of all traffic deaths a year worldwide.
That means that 151,000 Indians die each year,
four times as many as in the United States.
- Roads in the developing world and third world countries
have a tendency to be more hazardous than our roads here
primarily because we have been at it for a while now
and have worked to make roads safe
for the vehicles that are on 'em.
In developing countries, third world countries
it's a new concept.
- The main issues are these roadways
have all different variety of traffic on the same road.
Like you have passenger vehicles, you have trucks,
you have pedestrians, you have rickshaws,
you have cycles which actually reduces the capacity
and adds the safety concern.
- [Narrator] Compounding the danger
is that hundreds of thousands of new drivers
take to these cluttered roads every year.
From a generation with virtually no car culture heritage.
- In the US and in Western Europe,
you've had generations that have operated vehicles.
So people have almost a cultural instinct
on what you do when you get behind a wheel of a car.
- [Narrator] Not so in China,
where millions of new drivers are turning the nation's
growing interstate system into a crapshoot.
- Today, the Chinese driving along their new super highways
are high speed neophytes.
They don't know what they're doing.
They're moving about they're changing lanes.
They're using their horns
when people can't possibly hear them, it is chaotic.
Traveling on the Chinese interstates today
is like being in the Wild West.
Anything goes.
- [Narrator] Beyond improving the education
and training of its drivers, developing nations
are enlisting the help of traffic specialists,
like those that Arcadis in Atlanta, Georgia.
They design safe, smoothly flowing roads
based on successful systems developed over decades
in the US and Europe.
- We regularly develop simulation models,
which also become lifelike in being able
to look at the roadway on a computer
as we currently have designed it,
we can create three dimensional models
that we could communicate with our client.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] These models allow engineers
to dissect the flaws of existing roads or highways
and determine how they can refigure them
to improve traffic flow.
(upbeat music)
A major focus of companies like Arcadis
is urban intersections.
Globally, most traffic accidents occur in intersections
and design flaws of intersections in
developing nations multiply the dangers.
Many have no traffic signals, marked traffic lanes,
sidewalks, or crosswalks, creating gridlock and chaos.
- There is already so many congestion
that everybody wants to get to their destination
as soon as possible.
So they kind of get frustrated and break the rules.
- [Narrator] Case in point,
this impatient bus driver in China.
The traffic signal is red
and there are several cars stopped in front of him.
So he turns intentionally into oncoming traffic lanes
and runs the light only luck prevents a collision.
Can traffic engineers discourage stunts like this
with effective intersection design?
- As engineers, we try to lay out the road
to properly convey to the traveling public
through signing and marking what is approaching them
at the intersection, a proper edge pavement delineation,
right turn arrows, left turn arrows
to delineate which lanes are through lanes,
which lanes are left turn lanes,
which lanes are right turn lanes.
And then those are sequenced with the,
the signal phases at the main intersection.
- [Narrator] Adding well coordinated signal systems
at problematic intersections like this one,
not only help mitigate the danger to drivers,
but also to pedestrians.
(upbeat music)
Deficient intersection design encourages jaywalking.
And half of all traffic fatalities in developing nations
involve pedestrians.
- In addition to the roadway designed for vehicular traffic,
we also try to put in elements of pedestrian access,
like the sidewalk that I'm standing on now
will provide proper pedestrian crosswalks
and signalize free flowing movements for pedestrians
will get their own signal phase as well.
So that can safely and efficiently move the,
the pedestrian safely through an intersection,
avoiding conflict.
Maybe the most unusual kind of dangerous drive
is created by drivers who go to great lengths
to be on it.
(upbeat music) (car engines revving)
A special breed of competitors like this bunch
outside of Cedar City, Utah is pushing the boundaries
of off-roading to new heights.
(upbeat music) (car engines revving)
They relish the challenge of maneuvering
highly modified trucks or buggies over terrain
that most casual off roaders would consider
impossible to navigate.
(upbeat music) (car engines revving)
Their sport, aptly enough is called rock crawling.
- It feels like a rollercoaster, every single course.
You know, a lot of new people come out and watch
and they think, man, this is insane
and I can't believe you guys do this.
- One thing that all these guys have in common
is just going on a typical trail ride
isn't quite enough for 'em.
They wanna be pushed to do something extreme,
not just go out and do the same thing everyone else is.
(engine revving)
And you start feeling comfortable
being at 70 degree angles
up or down and 50 degree angle sideways.
- The competition is different
because it's usually a rock pile someplace.
And we're just trying to drive up the most extreme thing
that the course designer can think of.
(car engine roaring)
- [Narrator] Nicole Johnson
has been driving rock crawlers competitively since 2001.
- I think it's really exciting actually,
to be behind the wheel of this car
when you're driving up a big rock,
sometimes all you see is sky and clouds,
or when you're coming off of something steep,
you just see ground and you just hope you can run it out
and not roll in.
- [Frank] Okay drive forward, three wheel.
- [Narrator] Nicole, like every driver in rock crawling
depends on a spotter to act as a second set of eyes
and direct the overall effort.
- Rough over there, we're backing down.
- [Narrator] Nicole's spotter is her husband, Frank.
- There's just little cues that you look for
in the suspension and the way the car's built
that you could kind of tell that, oh, okay, we got it
or now we gotta back off.
- Steer me. - Okay, stop.
- The driver might get all of the glory,
but it's the spotter that does all the work.
The spotter's the poor guy
that's gotta run around the vehicle and pulling on ropes
and stacking rocks and pointing us where we need to go.
- [Narrator] The spotters face the greatest dangers
in rock crawling.
(car engine revving)
- No this way, straighten your wheel.
- [Narrator] Especially in the all too likely event
of a rollover.
- Spotters, falling down cliffs and hurting their legs
or their knees or any part of their body, really.
If the spotter is in a baddest position,
they could get run over it.
(car engine revving)
- [Narrator] For Nicole and Frank,
the secret to minimizing the danger is trust
and good communication.
- [Frank] Drive forward.
- [Nicole] Doesn't feel right.
- [Frank] Drive forward.
There you go.
- You really have to trust.
Sometimes the car feels really weird.
Feels like you're gonna roll when you're really not.
And he can tell if it's going to.
- [Frank] Rear dig down, rear dig down.
- Down this way. - Yeah.
Your ass end has to be that way, Nicole.
- [Nicole] I'm trying, Frank.
- Our way of dealing with it,
maybe we yell at each other.
Work left, go left now, go left.
All the way left, work in left.
- [Nicole] That's right.
- Go right, whatever that is.
But it it's a all, you know,
water under the bridge at that point,
we're here to have fun.
And that's what about, we had a lot of fights today,
but you know, we're smiling (laughs) so.
- It's all good.
- It's good.
- [Narrator] Beyond good teamwork,
competitors counter the sport's inherent dangers
with technology.
- Your dangers are really high.
If you're not wearing your proper safety harnesses,
if you're not wearing your helmet or fire suits
or anything like that, the danger is always there.
It's any kind of Motorsport.
(car engine revving)
- Rock crawling is a very dangerous sport.
We do treat it with respect.
We make sure that we have the best of the best
as far as a suspension seat,
the strongest seat belts that we can get.
- [Narrator] And these modified monsters,
also sports specialized tires available only for competitors
tailor made for the task.
- These are not your normal street tires.
These are 37 inch Maxxis Trepadors.
And as you can see, just by the tread,
they're ultra sticky.
And this is what keeps us cling to those rocks
on those side hills, on those big climbs,
this is what gets us up there.
(car engine revving)
- [Narrator] But it's more than just enormous tires
that get these buggies around these rocks.
It also takes state-of-the-art suspension systems.
- The suspension is known as a 4-link, as you can see,
there are two lower trailing arms
and two upper trailing arms.
Those upper trailing arms are actually
what locate the axle underneath the vehicle.
And then the lowers simply provide support.
This particular suspension gives us great movement up
and down for wheel travel and really helps us cling to those
hard side hills and those nasty crawling sections.
- [Narrator] And specialized brake controls
allow independent operation of the front and rear brakes.
While most of us do the best we can to avoid danger
when we're behind the wheel, these thrill-seekers pursue it
and savor its taste.
(upbeat music)
- When you're hanging off these cliffs and you're, you know,
looking down, ready to roll a vehicle
or you're leaning sideways and having to, you know,
pull an awesome save.
Trust me, there's a ton of adrenaline
going through your body.
- I think you have to be a little bit
of an adrenaline junkie,
and I can't think of any other sport that I would rather do.
- [Narrator] For these extreme athletes,
the more clear and present danger may lurk,
where they rejoin the rest of us on the established roads.
No need to seek out danger here,
sooner or later, it will find us.
(crash)
- [Officer] Just like that, see, just like that.