History Film / WheelsOfTragedy

Filmed in cooperation with the Ohio State Patrol, this art documentary/part drama movie focuses on the first day on the job for a young Ohio state trooper, who is riding along with a world-weary officer who has been on the scene of many serious accidents in his time.

''Wheels Of Tragedy'' – along with its predecessor ''Film/SignalThirty'' – remained a staple of many driver's education classes during the 1960s through as late as the early 1980s, all to instill safe driving habits in young teenagers who otherwise would be tempted to break every traffic law on the books. Other similar films included ''Red Asphalt'', ''Mechanized Death'', ''Film/HighwaysOfAgony'', ''Options to Live'' and many others. All with the same lesson in mind: If you don't follow traffic and safety laws all of the time behind the wheel... well, take a look at what might happen.

As with many previous "shock and gore" driver's education films of the era, the point of ''Wheels Of Tragedy'' was to stress to teenage drivers that one instance of failing to obey a traffic law, a decision to drive too fast, an instant of carelessness or recklessness can be deadly - and not just in a clean, bloodless death sense. Like the Ohio State Patrol's ''Film/SignalThirty'' released four years earlier, actual file footage of accident scenes, along with bodies mangled and bloodied beyond recognition, are used (although the events leading up to these tragedies are dramatized and re-enacted), this possible in an era long before privacy laws (such as HIPAA) were enacted.

* TeensAreMonsters: The final act with the car going into a river, the young man drives recklessly on a dark, winding road he is unfamiliar with. Rock music is playing on the car radio (another favorite vice of the era to distinguish "bad" teens from those who were far less likely to drive recklessly).

* BrokenTears: The senior trooper has seen it all, but things really get to him when he carries the dead body of a teen-aged girl from the wreckage of a car (that had plunged into a river), and cries out, ""Damn! DAMN!" (And you thought Florida Evans – who uttered those words 13 years later on ''Series/GoodTimes'' – coined the infamous phrase.)

'''''Wheels Of Tragedy''''' is a 1963 ScareEmStraight driver's education film depicting the tragic outcomes of actual car accidents.

As with many previous "shock and gore" driver's education films of the era, the point of ''Wheels Of Tragedy'' was to stress to teenage drivers that one instance of failing to obey a traffic law, a decision to drive too fast, an instant of carelessness or recklessness can be deadly ... and not just in a clean, bloodless death sense. Like the Ohio State Patrol's ''[[Film/SignalThirty Signal 30]]'' released four years earlier, actual file footage of accident scenes, along with bodies mangled and bloodied beyond recognition, are used (although the events leading up to these tragedies are dramatized and re-enacted), this possible in an era long before privacy laws (such as HIPAA) were enacted.

''Wheels Of Tragedy'' – along with its predecessor ''Film/SignalThirty'' – remained a staple of many driver's education classes during the 1960s through as late as the early 1980s, all to instill safe driving habits in young teenagers who otherwise would be tempted to break every traffic law on the books. Other similar films included "Red Asphalt," "Mechanized Death," "Highways of Agony," "Options to Live" and many others. All with the same lesson in mind: If you don't follow traffic and safety laws all of the time behind the wheel ... well, take a look at what might happen.

* {{Dramatization}}: The stories leading up to the car accidents are re-enactments (and likely somewhat fictionalized, to suggest events that ''might'' have happened). The footage that follows each crash is ... well, not.

* TeensAreMonsters: The final act with the car going into a river ... the young man drives recklessly on a dark, winding road he is unfamiliar with. Rock music is playing on the car radio (another favorite vice of the era to distinguish "bad" teens from those who were far less likely to drive recklessly).
* TrappedInASinkingCar: The final act, involving three teenagers whose car goes over a closed bridge and plummets into the river below. The driver and his best buddy survive, but the teen-aged girl ... well ... .

''Wheels Of Tragedy'' – along with its predecessor ''Signal 30'' – remained a staple of many driver's education classes during the 1960s through as late as the early 1980s, all to instill safe driving habits in young teenagers who otherwise would be tempted to break every traffic law on the books. Other similar films included "Red Asphalt," "Mechanized Death," "Highways of Agony," "Options to Live" and many others. All with the same lesson in mind: If you don't follow traffic and safety laws all of the time behind the wheel ... well, take a look at what might happen.

As with many previous "shock and gore" driver's education films of the era, the point of ''Wheels Of Tragedy'' was to stress to teenage drivers that one instance of failing to obey a traffic law, a decision to drive too fast, an instant of carelessness or recklessness can be deadly ... and not just in a clean, bloodless death sense. Like the Ohio State Patrol's ''Film/SignalThirty'' released four years earlier, actual file footage of accident scenes, along with bodies mangled and bloodied beyond recognition, are used (although the events leading up to these tragedies are dramatized and re-enacted), this possible in an era long before privacy laws (such as HIPAA) were enacted.

* ScreamsLikeALittleGirl: The man in the second accident scene is in incredible pain after being carried off on a stretcher. [[spoiler: (He had been thrown from his car after losing control and going into the ditch. The trooper explains that had the man been wearing a seat belt, he likely would have walked away and not been injured.)]]