Wheels of Tragedy (1963)

***WARNING – ACTUAL TRAFFIC FATALITY FOOTAGE***

We digitized and uploaded this film on behalf of the Prelinger Archives. Email us at footage@avgeeks.com if you have questions about the footage and are interested in using it in your project.

This film follows a patrolman on a holiday weekend as he trains a new cadet, teaching him the realities of highway patrol. They encounter various accidents, including a fatal car and truck collision caused by a driver falling asleep due to carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty muffler, a single-car accident resulting from loss of control and the driver not wearing a seatbelt, and a tragic incident where young people are killed in another truck collision. The film also revisits a previous victim of a severe car accident and highlights the devastating impact of negligence and human error on the road, comparing the annual number of traffic fatalities to the population of a city.

Keywords: highway patrol, cadet training, traffic accidents, fatal collision, carbon monoxide, negligence, seatbelts, human error, traffic fatalities, holiday weekend.