Before seat belts were standard issue a drivers only protect was themselves. Great collection of driver education films and driver safety films with a focus on avoiding accidents.
Included Films:
And Then There Were Four
And Then There Were Four
Produced: 1940s
Length: 25 Minutes
This film is from the safe driving genre (some fun educational videos), but it has many extras in it that make it a cut above average. Famous actor Jimmy Stewart narrates, introducing four unrelated people who are going to be filmed for one day. Stewart informs the audience that by the end one of them will die in a car accident. They each drive different cars or have different car safety features, any of which could lead to bad car accidents: one drives a hotrod, one has faulty brakes. The suspense is heightened effectively by knowing ahead of time that only one group will die, and guessing at which one. A fine example of 1940s melodrama, And Then There Were Four explores safe driving topics as well as the risk factors of driving. Of the many Jimmy Stewart narrations, this film about unsafe car dangers is highly entertaining.
How To Avoid An Accident
How To Avoid An Accident
Produced: 1940s
Length: 9 Minutes
How to Avoid an Accident is a classic promotional film that pushes the latest in tire technology: Super Squeegee Tires. Interesting for its classic cars and historical look at automotive innovation, the film also features some fantastic car crash scenes. Animation is also used to demonstrate the horrors of vehicular accidents and the danger they pose to the driver, the unsuspecting pedestrian, and children. How to Avoid an Accident smacks of campy 1940s dryness and rigid word view.
Anatomy of an Accident
Anatomy of an Accident
Produced: 1960s
Length: 25 Minutes
This beautifully filmed and engaging 1960s driving safety film doesnt pull any punches in exploring the ramifications car accidents can have on a family. Mr. Wayne, a man who previously preached to his family defensive driving tips, forgets one of his own rules and is killed along with his son in a car accident. The film moves towards campy melodrama as his ghost goes back to visit his bereaved familys house, where his wife is selling his favorite old chair to an elderly couple. With the dead father narrating, the film illustrates the grief of his wife and daughter because of the tragic death in the family, especially when the little boy dies in the hospital of the wounds he sustained due to his fathers inaction. After the youngster dies, the ghost of his father asks him for absolution but is denied. And along the way, the film shows that the elderly couple that bought the chair were the same people who caused the accident! This film is powerful, and also contains some parts that seem incongruous to modern audiences, like the fact that in a film about defensive driving, no one wears seatbelts. But this defensive driving DVD accurately describes the risk factors of driving, as well as many safety driving topics. Bad car accidents are a horrific ordeal, and this film implores audiences to be safer on the road, if not to attend a defensive driving school.
