New device available: Amazon Fire TV

This film is part of Free

Safe or Sorry

Policemen in mufti act out accident scenarios to an assembly of school children, while Safety Sam drives the road safety message home

School programme and Educational film 1950 4 mins

From the collection of:

Logo for Screen Archive South East

Overview

This professionally made road safety film shows policemen, out of uniform, demonstrating various - and unintentionally hilarious - accident scenarios involving bicycles, motorbikes, cars and wayward pedestrians to an audience of school children. Safety Sam, wearing an appropriate costume, gives the children further advice on road safety. We later see a boy on his bike visiting a bicycle repair man after colliding with a policeman directing traffic in the street.

The caption 'You can't be too careful' seen at the end of this film, harks back to British wartime propaganda films made during the Second World War. The oft-repeated phrase could be applied to a variety of topics; from careless talk and the fifth-column menace to personal safety in the workplace.