Ice Road Truckers: Deadliest Roads - TV review

Watching an episode of this show quickly makes you realise you have never really experienced a proper nightmare journey behind the wheel.

Tales of ploughing through a bit of snow and fog on Britain’s fairly mild motorways would do little to impress these drivers, who regularly navigate huge trucks across frozen lakes and rivers in the arctic territories of Canada and Alaska.

Ice Road Truckers has been a hit show in its own right and Deadliest Roads is a spin-off series which challenges the same drivers to pit their skills on some of the most difficult routes in the world.

Last night three sets of drivers and their navigators were in Bolivia. Lisa Kelly and her partner GW Boles, were tasked with transporting a haul of Llamas across 100 miles of salt flats while the most experienced trucker, Hugh Rowland, was set the challenge of travelling along a route nicknamed ‘death road’ to take bricks from La Paz to Corico.

Driver Tim Rodriguez and his spotter Tim Zickhur were set the same challenge following behind Hugh.

It was quickly evident why the route had a daunting nickname. It is little more than a narrow dirt track that winds its way up through the mountains with the wheels of the trucks often teetering on the edge of crumbling ledges which fall away to some cavernous drops.

It is real Indiana Jones stuff and the action-film style soundtrack added to the suspense. You would think, then, that they would want to concentrate on what they were doing rather than talking into the camera. Although you do get the impression that if they had careered off the edge and plunged hundreds of feet below, these guys would probably have just pulled themselves free of the wreckage, dusted themselves down and lit a cigar or something.

The narrator reiterated in his most dramatic voice: “There is only two types of trucker, a good trucker and a dead trucker”.

Hugh Rowland, we were told, is the most experienced and looks every inch the part with his tree trunk arms covered in tattoos.

Meanwhile Rodriguez and his annoying navigator Zickhur were on the route for the first time and while Rodriguez appeared cautious his ‘adrenaline junkie’ partner Zickhur was playing to the camera.

However his stunts were brought to an abrupt end when Rodriguez smashed his wing mirror as Zickhur was not looking out for him. “Losing a mirror can be the difference between life and death on a road like this,” grumbled Rodriguez. I think most viewers would have happily slammed the brakes on sending Zickhur on his final adrenaline filled flight off the edge of a cliff had they been in Rodriguez’s position, I know I would have.

A few hundred miles away, Lisa Kelly was challenged with making her way 100 miles across a 70ft deep salt water lake covered in a salt crust.

The dangers included driving on parts of the crust too thin to hold the weight of the truck which could send it crashing into the waters below. And these flats are the world’s biggest lithium reserve, meaning compasses don’t work and there are no landmarks!

With all of that to contend with, it was rather unfortunate that Lisa’s truck broke down half way, leaving her in a battle against time to diagnose and fix the problem before the sunlight faded and temperatures dropped below freezing . . . just a tad stressful.

But the petite blonde heroically came through, getting stuck in and repairing a water hose as her navigator looked on – girl power indeed.

This is a great show, recommended for putting any hellish motorway journey into perspective.

Ben Lammas