Hundertdreizehn is a German-Austrian television series directed by Rick Ostermann from a screenplay by Arndt Stüwe. Its title and premise were inspired by a 2017 study from a road safety campaign, which estimated that on average 113 people are directly or indirectly affected when one person dies in a road accident. Each episode focuses on a different character affected by a crash in which a long-distance bus leaves the road and causes a series of serious accidents.
Background
The series took its title and theme from a study published in 2017 as part of the Runter vom Gas road safety campaign, run by the German Federal Ministry of Transport and the German Road Safety Council. According to the study, an average of 113 people are directly or indirectly affected whenever a single person dies in a traffic accident. The series builds on this idea by showing the wider human consequences of one fatal crash.
Plot and structure
Each episode centres on a person affected by the accident. Two continuing storylines follow a trio of investigators, Anne Goldmundt, Jan Auschra and Hänno Gudjons, as they search for the cause, and the fate of the bus driver Theo Gradtke's two partners and their daughters. To reconstruct the crash, investigators rebuild the accident scene with the wreck of the bus in a large hall, where affected people sometimes appear or are invited to talk.