It’s safe to say that over the course of a few decades, driver safety has increased exponentially. How did we ever practice proper defensive driving without innovations such as crumple zones, side curtain airbags, or even the humble seatbelt?
There’s perhaps no better place to see this progression than in the wild world of stunt driving, an occupation that attempts to create a perception of danger and risk, while embracing safety and wellbeing of the people involved.
George Miller, writer-director of the rough-and-tumble Mad Max franchise, is a prominent witness to the evolution of driver safety. Throughout the long and storied franchise, Miller does his best to minimize special effects and fancy computer-generated imagery, opting instead to shoot all of his rousing action scenes as practically as possible.
Audiences were first introduced to a dystopian Earth rife with lead-footed bandits, renegades, and road warriors back in 1979 with the release of Mad Max, a low-budget action romp stuffed to the gills with hair-raising car chases, death-defying stunts, and staggeringly low safety standards.
Many of the “stuntmen” seen in the movie weren’t trained professionals but actually Australian residents who happened to answer the casting call. These ranged from normal commuters, to drivers, to even biker gangs. In fact, Miller paid $50 for the services (and vehicle) of an actual semi-truck driver for the climactic scene in which antagonist Toecutter gets run over. The driver was so concerned about the potential damage to his truck that the production crew attached a shield to the front and painted it to look like the grill and headlights.
If that wasn’t dangerous enough, when filming Nightrider’s flaming fireball of a car crash, the crew thought it would be a good idea to strap a military-grade booster rocket to the back of his car. You read that right – they went Wile E. Coyote in real life. And much like the desperate canine’s plans, this one failed miserably – the amount of the thrust put off by the rocket caused the car to lose control, miss its intended target, and careen through the field until the crew could flag it down.
More than 30 years later, a new generation of gearheads is ready to witness the spectacle of a cinematic post-apocalyptic demolition derby with the release of Mad Max: Fury Road. And while the vehicles are pushing more horses and the stunts are crazier than ever, they may have been the safest yet.
To undertake this task, Miller hired celebrated stuntman Guy Norris as Fury Road’s supervising stunt coordinator. Norris had previously worked for Miller on the sequel to Mad Max, The Road Warrior – it was his very first stunt gig – so he’s seen and experienced the smashmouth, haphazard stunts of the past. In fact, he actually ended up with a broken femur due to a motorcycle stunt gone awry.
According to Norris, the stunts undertaken during Fury Road were meticulously planned to maximize the safety of everyone involved. To coordinate this “high-risk illusion,” Norris eschewed the local flavor and instead hired his own personal, 150-member team of stunt drivers and riggers to carefully coordinate each and every high-flying spectacle in the movie.
There’s no better illustration of this than an epic scene in which a 16-wheeler is driven right into another wrecked 16-wheeler at full speed. Under normal circumstances, the sheer force of the impact would likely kill the driver, but Norris and his high-octane braintrust concocted a brilliant solution involving a driving pod on rails. This would allow the forces of the crash to dissipate and allow the driver an immense amount of safety – even in the midst of such a spectacular crash.
While we consider the benefits of technological advances such as rear-view cameras, self-driving cars, and parking-assist functions, those on the extreme side of driving are benefiting most from the advances of driver safety. Over the course of 30 years, men like Guy Norris and George Miller have seen stunt driving go from landing motorcycles in piles of cardboard boxes to crashing semi-trucks at full speed without so much as a scratch on the driver. To say that’s a considerable advancement would be an incredible understatement.