Talk about road safety for seven decades it was a little less than a contradiction in terms. Such a thing was practically non-existent, although by that time already began to arise voices that abogasen for the installation of security systems, and the knowledge of the risks involved driving a motor vehicle. In those years, were extremely popular the acrobats Jimmie Lynch and the Death Dodgers, pilots, specialists that played for a living (and truth) in every show, starring the incredible leaps that usually ended in collisions chilling; putting their vehicles on two wheels; and even through walls of fire.
I advise reading the article from Mashable, which shows a amazing images of the Dead Dodgers in the Safety Week of the New York World’s Fair 1939 and 1940. A show that in those years it was presented as “madness and automotive challenges to the death that leave the audience breathless”. It is not for less.
to The thread of this story, we find a graphic document even more chilling, in video. A production of the British Pathè british in 1940, in which these images come to life and movement, to make us wonder for a moment how they were able to prepare to withstand these accidents, and exit a piece of the car.
Although it may not appear so, those shows were not racing destruction (the famous destruction derby us but exhibits risk, very similar concept to that of the acrobats modern. Although obviously developed in a much more unpredictable and unsafe.
In motor: