Hey all did anyone watch Ice Road Truckers last night on C5?
I thought it was amazing how they built the road and then the bravery of those drivers who did the actual driving. Then there was the age of some of them. I think the youngest one was only 21 
You can see the main difference between us over here and them over there is that they just drive non stop with out the good old EC looking over there shoulder every 5 minutes 
Looks like its going to be an excellent series 
Thoroughly enjoyed it
Driving along watching a crack in the ice growing in front of you must help to keep you awake 
The series was orginally on the National Geographic Channel and it became one of my favourite programs of last year.
CW.
i dont like it. its all staged anyway to make it look worse. also apart from tjâs volvo ive seen better looking trucks in the scrappers.
now give me deadliest catch anyday. you cant fake ice seas and waves coming over the top of the boat.
They could not pay me enough money to do that.
A years wages in 10 weeks
Iâd be up there in a shot if I got the chance to do it!
Must be an awesome thrill.
Lots of threads on the Ice Road Truckers forum about âWhat companies will pay my travel up there and back, and accommodation when not in the truckâ
hell Iâll pay all my fares and accommodation and bribe the operator with a couple of grand just for a go at that.
Yes I watched it and enjoyed it butâŠ
Check out the load weights. Around ten ton for most of them which means those whacking great Yank trucks probably weight more than the load and if they are only hauling ten ton then why the hell dont they use a smaller verhicle with a smaller trailer?
Would make more sense if they are worried about the weight on the ice.
Less chance of dropping through I would have thought.
7.5 tonner would probably do the job OK but that would not give 'em the macho image they have right now would it.
Mothertrucker,
I might have got my conversions wrong here but by the 3rd episode most of them are hauling about 92,000lbs a run, which is close to 42 tonnes.
They keep the weights down for the first week or so of the runs then put it up for the majority of the season, or so I understand.
Alex
Next episode 8pm tonight http://www.five.tv/tvguide/
get setting your video recorders, or get the nearest 5 yr old to do it for you
Scarab:
Mothertrucker,I might have got my conversions wrong here but by the 3rd episode most of them are hauling about 92,000lbs a run, which is close to 42 tonnes.
They keep the weights down for the first week or so of the runs then put it up for the majority of the season, or so I understand.
Alex
you 2 sure about the weights?
Mothertrucker:
Yes I watched it and enjoyed it butâŠ
Check out the load weights. Around ten ton for most of them which means those whacking great Yank trucks probably weight more than the load and if they are only hauling ten ton then why the hell dont they use a smaller verhicle with a smaller trailer?
Would make more sense if they are worried about the weight on the ice.
Less chance of dropping through I would have thought.
7.5 tonner would probably do the job OK but that would not give 'em the macho image they have right now would it.
Channel 5:
Ice Road Truckers (Documentary)
Time - 20:00 - 21:00 (1 hour long)
When - Friday 1st February on five
Documentary series examining the lucrative but highly dangerous job of driving trucks on Canadaâs notorious ice highway. The heaviest load of the season is delivered to the De Beers diamond mine in the form of a 17-ton water tank; Hugh Rowland competes with his colleague Rick Yemm to make the most deliveries; and the ice truckers try their luck on the regionâs most notorious stretch of road.
(Followed By Five News at 9, Subtitles, PG)
Next episode 8pm tonight http://www.five.tv/tvguide/
get setting your video recorders, or get the nearest 5 yr old to do it for you
Iâm in Heaven!!..As a former truck driver and still a Diver I canât wait for tonights episode they show you a diver going under the ice to check it out!!!
Even if it is staged it is a fine programme, but it does happen every year. I would of thought there might be a bit of artistic licence to make it look more glamourous, if you had a camera with you all day it would be a VERY boring film without the odd tweek here or there!!
Take it as it is a bit of âLight entertainmentâ and chill out guys. (sorry bout the pun couldnât resist!!)
âThe Deadliest catchâ now were talkingâŠ
SMc
Mothertrucker:
whacking great Yank trucks probably weight more than the load .
But are still, size for size, lighter than a Euro. Arenât they still built out of aluminium and, or, fibreglass?
and if they are only hauling ten ton then why the hell dont they use a smaller verhicle with a smaller trailer?
Would make more sense if they are worried about the weight on the ice.
Less chance of dropping through I would have thought.
Not when you consider the spread of all the axles, less concentrated.
7.5 tonner would probably do the job OK but that would not give 'em the macho image they have right now would it
Do you really think that everyone is using those motors just for the glamour of it all? I donât. Apart from this series there is hardly anyone that ever sees them.
its all staged anyway to make it look worse
The production company that made the series approached Tci Clo Lan Tran(sp?) to make a second series.
They told them to sling their hook because the series you are seeing on channel 5 at the moment bears little resemblance to the actual job. It all been dramatised in the extreme to make the work look dangerous and exiting.
Not the first time the media has lied about trucking / truckers though is it 
lol i said to my wife âI WANNA GOâ
and her reply was âYou do and i want a divorceâ
would love to just for the experience of it all not just the money but the sights and the fact that you can then really say you have done it.
given half a chance i would move to canada and drive out there just going on stories i have read in T&D and other mags like that.
LOL i think it would be a little too cold for the clampers to bother you.
shade:
its all staged anyway to make it look worse
They told them to sling their hook because the series you are seeing on channel 5 at the moment bears little resemblance to the actual job. It all been dramatised in the extreme to make the work look dangerous and exiting.
I donât understand all of this fuss about TV companies âsexing upâ their programmes. Real life is boring.
I mean, if there was a programme about UK trucking, how interesting would it be if the narrator said âThree hours later and Harry Monk is still sitting on a plastic seat in the drivers waiting room. He knows he will get out of Tescoâs at Purfleet some time but it might be another five minutes- and then (gasp!!!) the gate exit code might not work and he might have to call on the intercom.â
We all know TJ isnât really going to fall through the ice, letâs just get over it.
An enjoyable documentary all the same, but as for it not really being dangerous and the cameras glamourising it â â ?
Wonder if the families of the 12 truckers who have died to date going through the ice see it as a safe and ordinary job, and the program over dramatising?
Without a doubt, those guys have got balls of steel, moreso when you see the total number left crossing the ice when itâs just about melted.
The reason that the show hasnât got a second season on that particular section of the winter roads is that Tli Cho Lan Tran werenât happy with how the drivers were portrayed, not that the show was âsexed upâ
[PLEASE DONâT READ BELOW THIS LINE IF YOU DONâT WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS IN LATER EPISODES]
For example, when Jay Westgard left to take that load âwithout being able to see his ill daughterâ it made it look like he hadnât seen her since he left.
What it DIDNâT mention is that Jay had previously spent the past TWO DAYS in hospital with his kid and fiancĂ©e, it was made to look like he chose another load over his sick child, which simply isnât fair.
Also the arguments between Rick and Hugh, it was made to look like Rick didnât try to get the truck heater fixed himself, and that Hugh wouldnât allow him to.
What actually happened is that Rick sat outside Leeâs Workshop for SEVEN whole days waiting to get in, but couldnât as he was fixing other trucks. Rickâs only argument with Hugh at the end is that he hadnât stepped in to try and get some better service.
Entirely the opposite of what the show turned out.
The incidents poor Drew had were certainly unfortunate and probably at least partly due to his driving style, but another thing that wasnât mentioned is that Rick bought that truck from an auction only a week before the road opened and didnât even get it checked out/serviced or anything. Which certainly wouldnât have helped matters.
Made some probably good truckers look like arrogant idiots.
Alex
Taken from the Canadian Broadcasting Co. website
Late last year, producers with the History Channel approached representatives of the mining companies that built the Contwoyto road about filming a second season. But they said they are not interested, claiming the network misrepresented their industry by making it look riskier than it really is.
âItâs a TV series built around this romantic notion of people making a dash for money and doing it at a very high risk,â said Tom Hoefer, a spokesman with Diavik Diamond Mines Inc.
âItâs very far, far from the reality of how we operate the road, and so we just didnât see any value in continuing that message.â
Hoefer said having the TV cameras trained on the drivers also presented safety issues. The first season showed the drivers hamming it up for constantly running remote cameras attached to their trucks.
âQuite frankly, we thought that there was a safety risk created by having a number of drivers who were constantly under the scrutiny of a camera â basically on stage all the time â as they were driving, and it sort of diverted their attention from the job at hand.â
New rules put in place for this yearâs ice road prohibit drivers from attaching video cameras inside or outside their trucks.
The History Channel is looking at other options, including shooting on some of the ice roads between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T
nuff said
Hamming up or not, when Drew decided to go look for a coffee cup elsewhere in the cab, whilst in cruise control, I was dumbfounded.
I found it shocking, quite frankly.