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Pant-Wettingly Scary Public Information Films

Mr. Banooka said:
I worked with a guy years ago who was buying a new car. In the end he got the dealer to find him an unsold previous years model. His reason...The new version had electric windows whereas the previous years had wind up. When asked why he didn’t want electric windows his response was that if he drove his car into a river, a lake or the sea, he would be able to depressurise the car with the wind up windows, whereas the electrics would short out on the one with electric windows, and he’d be trapped. We asked him did he really think he was that bad a driver?
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Mostly, the electrics will still work for a while with the car submerged. Long enough to get the windows open, if the driver reacts quickly.
Probably best to also keep one of those special window breaker hammers handy, or a spring-loaded centre punch.
 
GNC said:
This is like folk horror, except it's about cars:
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There was a country lane near me with a dip with very poor drainage, so there was always a puddle across the road - sometimes impressively deep. The Council responded with a "Flood" sign on the approach and a "Now test your brakes" sign on exiting. According to the local paper, some-one drove through the wet and then slammed on the brakes and skidded off the road. He was attempting to sue the Council for causing accidents, but I didn't catch the outcome.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Mostly, the electrics will still work for a while with the car submerged. Long enough to get the windows open, if the driver reacts quickly.
Probably best to also keep one of those special window breaker hammers handy, or a spring-loaded centre punch.
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My brother-in-law was cruising down the motorway in a BMW when the engine and all the electrics cut out - nothing he could do. My nephew strapped in the back seat had managed to spill a carton of Capri Sun into the rear window lock, which took out the fuses.
 
Bad Bungle said:
My brother-in-law was cruising down the motorway in a BMW when the engine and all the electrics cut out - nothing he could do. My nephew strapped in the back seat had managed to spill a carton of Capri Sun into the rear window lock, which took out the fuses.
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That sounds like a freak occurrence! Another good reason not to buy a BMW.
 
I remember being shown "Robbie" along with the rest of the year in the school assembly hall, probably about 1978 so I would have been about 7

It has stayed with me ever since
 
Bad Bungle said:
My brother-in-law was cruising down the motorway in a BMW when the engine and all the electrics cut out - nothing he could do. My nephew strapped in the back seat had managed to spill a carton of Capri Sun into the rear window lock, which took out the fuses.
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A similar thing happened to my uncle, he was driving his mercades on the M6 when he ran over a small piece of debris on the road and his car cut out completely, engine, electrics the lot, luckily he had enough momentum to coast to the hard shoulder and called the AA. The breakdown guy arrived and my my uncle explained what had happened, the guy smiled and nodded, asking my uncle to pop his boot (trunk), he removed the spare wheel and pressed a button located beneath it, then explained the car had an emergency cut off for when it was involved in a major accident, but they are always far too sensitive.
 
I always remember the cold war information film were a woman wets herself in terror as the mushroom cloud forms.
 
Souleater said:
A similar thing happened to my uncle, he was driving his mercades on the M6 when he ran over a small piece of debris on the road and his car cut out completely, engine, electrics the lot, luckily he had enough momentum to coast to the hard shoulder and called the AA. The breakdown guy arrived and my my uncle explained what had happened, the guy smiled and nodded, asking my uncle to pop his boot (trunk), he removed the spare wheel and pressed a button located beneath it, then explained the car had an emergency cut off for when it was involved in a major accident, but they are always far too sensitive.
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Reminds me of Top Gear heart-throb Jeremy Clarkson and his new 2005 Ford GT - the anti-theft tracking device accused him of stealing his own car five times in a day. The Supplier phoned him to say they were going to remotely immobilize the 'stolen' car as he was driving down the motorway.
 
Zeke Newbold said:
I can remember in the early seventies - when I would have been about 7 maybe - our school herded us all into the dining room and showed us a film (shown via a cine-projector) concerning what we would now call `Stranger-danger`.

It was telling us to be wary of paedophiles - a word which was not used then - who might prey on us in public spaces like parks by offering sweets and so on. The people concerned were portrayed as weird, single people - all male, if I recall. (The now commonplace idea that such abuse happens within the family was not entered upon).

The film was a rather scary one to be showing to such young kids. One scene in particular is branded on my mind. It showed a young girl - naked (I think this must have somehow be implied rather than directly shown) and cowering against a wall while the shadow of a man could be seen moving towards her.

I didn't really understand at that age what the programme was trying to imply, but I did get the message that there were some sinister adults lurking around out there.The film affected me to the extent that I had an excessive fear of random people in the streets for quite some time after that (In those days it was quite normal for a child to walk two or three miles to school unaccompanied by an adult and to go out on long walks, likewise with only peers for company, to play at the weekends).

This seems of note to me as it shows that there is nothing much new under the sun. The current paranoia around paedophilia seems to have existed, in some form, a good fifty or so years back and is not as contemporary as we might think. Or was that when it was all getting started?

And I ferverently believe that these kinds of Public Safety Warnings can do as much harm as they do good - both then and now.I never had any experiences with paedophiles when I was a kid - but my young mind was for sure darkened by these kinds of images put before me by well intentioned people.
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I remember watching that one too in school or something very similar anyway. Like you, I don't think I fully understood the implications. I actually found the policeman who came in and introduced the film far more frightening.
 
When I was in Junior School (years 3 to 6 for the young’uns), Greater Manchester Fire Brigade used to visit the school every year near bonfire night and show us photos of burn victims in the hope that it would deter us from playing near bonfires and fireworks. It was pretty horrific to be honest. I‘m not sure it would be allowed now. My fondest memory of these visits was when the fireman (it was a man) showed a picture of a boy who had burned his bottom falling on a fire. Rather than having the desired affect of giving a sports-hall full of Pre-teens nightmares for the next three months, the whole school burst into fits of laughter at a two metre wide bare arse projected onto the sports-hall wall.
 
GNC said:
Remember that time when Superman murdered a guy for smoking?
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I‘d forgotten all about that, but there must have been some lingering memory as I now know why whenever I see Superman on TV I say “It’s Superman, Hooray!”
 
Mr. Banooka said:
I‘d forgotten all about that, but there must have been some lingering memory as I now know why whenever I see Superman on TV I say “It’s Superman, Hooray!”
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Yes, because Superman is a 'murderer-u-like'. :)
 
Mr. Banooka said:
a picture of a boy who had burned his bottom falling on a fire.
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In the same area, during the 1960s, I clearly recall a cautionary interview on the Look North regional news show, which featured a young lad and his mum. The mum mainly nodded.

I paraphrase the exchange, which was difficult to forget:

"Now, Billy, you have something to say to all those girls and boys out there, who want to celebrate Bonfire Night safely, don't you?"
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"Don't put fireworks in your pocket!"
"Last year, you did that, didn't you, Billy?"
"Yes."
"What happened to that rocket in your pocket?"
"It went off."
"Oh dear! I suppose that hurt a lot."
"Yes!"
"And there's something else you want to say to the boys and girls."
"Yes. I can't have babies!"
"Thank you, Billy! Now over to Stuart Hall, who is wearing a funny hat!" :oops:

They did not call it the Darwin Awards in those days.
 
JamesWhitehead said:
In the same area, during the 1960s, I clearly recall a cautionary interview on the Look North regional news show, which featured a young lad and his mum. The mum mainly nodded.

I paraphrase the exchange, which was difficult to forget:

"Now, Billy, you have something to say to all those girls and boys out there, who want to celebrate Bonfire Night safely, don't you?"
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"Don't put fireworks in your pocket!"
"Last year, you did that, didn't you, Billy?"
"Yes."
"What happened to that rocket in your pocket?"
"It went off."
"Oh dear! I suppose that hurt a lot."
"Yes!"
"And there's something else you want to say to the boys and girls."
"Yes. I can't have babies!"
"Thank you, Billy! Now over to Stuart Hall, who is wearing a funny hat!" :oops:

They did not call it the Darwin Awards in those days.
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Classic local news segway :hahazebs:
 
Souleater said:
Classic local news segway :hahazebs:
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3e704b39db1b2f6fe62007a229bd04e5


“Look out, there's a reporter riding a Segway.”

https://www.news.com.au/national/qu...h/news-story/e8f14dacdf075c4be059537fac668ea5

maximus otter
 
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GNC said:
Remember that time when Superman murdered a guy for smoking?
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We never really found out what Nicoteen's, superpowers were apart from the power of persuasion. Maybe he could survive rapid acceleration and lack of oxygen? (lack of oxygen obviously).

Anyhow, the big tobacco companies would have scrambled a few helicopters before he left the atmosphere. You don't just throw away your main marketing man.
 
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