Boobytrap!, 1972, “Insurance Institute For Highway Safety”, Eastman Color? Pink Fade,

This 1972 color film from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety presents cautionary advice on avoiding the perils of a number of common roadside obstacles, using real world examples from Towson County, Maryland’s Interstate Highway I-146. The audience for this film is not just drivers, but government agencies that are responsible for providing and maintaining a safe highway system, presumably to promote the installation of safety barriers and guardrails (TRT 28:17).

A roadside sign: “Thank You for Driving Carefully” and a flashing title, “Boobytrap!” (0:08). Slow zooms on various roadside obstacles intercut with car crash photos and the same bold red title overlay. The montage intensifies (0:16). Our host Ben Kelly, a man in glasses, walks along a grassy expressway embankment. His address continues in closeup (1:10). Ben introduces a series of lethal roadside hazards: Bridge piers, signposts, trees, and rocks (2:12). Accident footage shot near Washington, D.C. by a Congressional staff team investigating road designs that encourage skidding. Cars drive on a wet road with their headlights on. One car veers into a ditch. A Volkswagen Beetle skids and spins wildly across a curving highway. Other cars follow suit (2:41). A highway exit ramp forks, and a car, caught off-guard, struggles onto a traffic island. Other erratic drivers follow, including a large truck. A trailer narrowly misses a bridge pier (3:17). Susan P. Baker, a Maryland faculty member of John Hopkins School of Hygiene and Mental Health speaks in an interview, pleading for a removal of roadside obstacles (4:46). Photos of traffic accidents involving trees and guardrails (5:49). A speeding 1950s style car skips over a road’s shoulder and comes to rest on an open patch of grass (6:16). Ben appears before a scale model of a “cloverleaf” highway interchange. Crash zooms on miniature bridge piers, railings. Model ditches, drop-offs, signposts, light poles, utility poles, and guard rails (6:29). Real world footage resumes. Ben raps a bridge pier with a roll of paper. A craggy embankment: “How’d you like to hit these rocks at 60 miles per hour?” and another “unyielding light pole, anchored in concrete.” Ben stands in the road while admonishing a telephone pole, hugs a sharp guardrail, and stands between two signposts. Ben sits on a guardrail at I-146’s Exit 27 for Towson, Maryland (7:06). Footage from a fast-moving vehicle shows rocks and trees. A storm sewer and a montage of crashed vehicles from days gone by (8:12). Dr. William Haddon Jr., President of the IIHS and the nation’s first federal highway safety chief speaks (8:59). Ben returns. On the scale model, signposts vanish (9:51). A breakaway pole is demonstrated in a crash test film from the Texas Transportation Institute (10:35). A railing guards a grassy open shoulder. A guardrail leads to a dangerous bridge railing (11:31). A car hits a guardrail and bounces back into the road. Another, more flexible rail slows several speeding vehicles (12:15). A contoured concrete barrier is demonstrated in slow motion (12:53). British test footage of a tubed “dragon curb.” A violent head-on crash into a guardrail. Alternative flared and anchored rail designs (13:02). On the model, a sign posted on a gore area (13:38). Crashes into empty oil drums, sand, and water canisters (14:00). Crash cushions at a Golden Gate Bridge toll booth. The New York State Thruway (14:57). I-216 Exit ramp signs for Scaggsville (15:22). Dr. Haddon narrates footage of concrete posts near Washington, D.C.’s Dulles International Airport (16:15). Joe Linco, a New York TV repairman complains of a concrete stanchion over photos of hazards (18:15). Congressman John Blatnick of Minnesota, Chairman of the House Public Works Committee (19:26). Andrew Rico, General Counsel of the IIHS (21:17). Canadian “boobytraps” (22:15). A farm in Vermont. Dr. Julian Waller speaks on New England obstacles (22:48). An animated graph, “lives saved per $ spent,” shows spending favors construction over safety by a ratio of 49-to-1 (23:52). Henry H. Waitland, Director of the Office of Surface Transportation for the National Transportation Safety Board laments the situation. Ben sums up (25:09). End credits and thank you’s. Film conception and narration: Ben Kelley; producer and director: Leo Trachtenberg; written by Richard Hebert; edited by Paul Swedenburg; camera: Edward A. Barnett (27:02).

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com