Hot Roads - The World's Most Dangerous Roads

Aired 2011

They run through deserts, ice and snow, deep in the jungle, along water and over mountains: the world’s most dangerous roads. Many risk their lives along these roads. Yet for lack of alternative routes, locals continue to use them for transportation. This series tells stories that take place along the routes, of the people who live along them and for whom these are part and parcel of their personal destiny. The filmmakers tag along in the driver’s seat of trucks, on the rear benches of busses and in the passenger seat of regular cars to experience the danger and beauty these roads offer from different perspectives – through the windshield and in the rear-view mirror simultaneously.

Aired 2015

These are some of the world's most dangerous roads. Whether legally or illegally, people, animals and goods are transported on them. They are tracks, paths and passes. However, there is no information about what the routes actually look like, the precipices they can lead to, or the number of curves and obstacles that must be overcome. The roads can change from day to day and even from hour to hour. Rain, mud, snow, sandstorms, rockfalls and hurricanes can turn a predictable risk into an unknown quantity. Everyone who embarks on this dangerous journey hopes to arrive safely.

Aired 2024

People, animals and goods are transported on desert tracks, narrow mountain roads or roads made of ice, because for many these "Hot Roads" are the only way to get to their families or to transport urgently needed goods. Road conditions can change from day to day, from hour to hour. Encounters with wild animals on and off the trail do the rest, making the trip a real ride into risk for everyone. But where there is danger, there is also beauty. Whether it is coastal rainforest on the Pacific coast in British Columbia, shifting sand dunes in the Thar Desert, or thousands of wildebeest among the acacias of the Serengeti, our routes are characterized by a diversity and uniqueness that is second to none.