When You Are a Pedestrian

Produced: 1948

Length: 9 Minutes

In the 1940s educational video When Youre a Pedestrian, Joe Smith, the deceased narrator, encourages both pedestrian and driver safety. Taking the scare them straight approach, footage of bad car accidents from the streets of Oakland, California, and scenarios depicted in a scaled-down model city, graphically illustrates accidents and documents the carnage left behind. Though primarily about how pedestrians must be careful, the film also implicates drivers and their responsibility to drive safely. Here is death. Raw and ugly death! the narrator fiendishly intones. The remedies for these horrors are, as one would expect, safe driving habits, defensive driving, and pedestrian safety tips. These gruesome car accident stories are not entirely dated and without merit in and of themselves: road traffic accidents are a horrific killer every year. When Youre a Pedestrian is good for a laugh and a reminder of the need for pedestrian and driver responsibility.