American Reacts to Britain's Horrifying Public Safety Films

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As an American I have never seen British public safety films. Today I am very interested in seeing these for the first time and finding out why they are so 'horrifying'. If you enjoyed the video feel free to leave a comment, like, or subscribe for more!

[@ComicbookSam]

This is why us Brits have such dark humor. Nothing will be as gruesome as short films of children dying between the cartoons.

[@jodychapman7686]

100%

[@Dr_Vix]

@@ComicbookSam 🤣🤣

[@nessbolton]

🤪🤪🤪🤪

[@Dgboroflyer]

Who knew fridges were so dangerous… death literally loomed around every corner in 70/80s

[@VayVay1570-idk]

100% correct mate.

[@AnnetteLawrence-mv2tz]

I’m 64 and remember these vividly. The thing is that kids back then weren’t wrapped in cotton wool. We played out with our friends for hours. No mobile phones and no grown ups with us. These were designed to make us think twice before doing something reckless. Most of us in the 60’s had great childhoods and grew up to be well adjusted adults.

[@SAABROSS]

Ignored the adverts and waited on the films and cartoons. 😂

[@spencercorker7013]

When I was a kid in the 70s the street was packed with kids from 2 to 16 playing all kinds of games. Kirby, please Mr policeman, chasey, block, The big kids would keep an eye on the little ones. When it snowed, it was snowball fights snowmen making. A bloke that lived near me actually used to ski down a steep road near my house along with all of us kids on sledges or metal tea trays.

[@matthewdearsley123]

if u say so... now you all vote UKIP

[@minion3806]

​@matthewdearsley123 try and stay on topic, Mr bot 😂

[@SAABROSS]

@spencercorker7013 exactly... They were the days. Can't be beaten. The only way was up then. Over the hill isn't so enjoyable. 🤣

[@chrisallen19821982]

It was always a great day at school when a big tv would be wheeled into the class room 🤣🤣

[@quantisedspace7047]

Yes, none of this interactive wboard nonsense. The TV was a serious safety hazard in itself, having a huge particle accelerator inside, which wouldn't be allowed in schools nowadays. Anyway I went to school before even VHS was a thing: we had to make do with a film projector.

[@EmzZone42]

I agree 😂

[@dcallan812]

It was such a huge step up from the overhead slide projector 🤣

[@SAABROSS]

Audio visual fear room. 😂

[@sallyannwheeler6327]

🤣🤣🤣

[@margaretnicol3423]

You can do all the 'educating' you want but sometimes a short, sharp shock gets the message home much clearer and quicker.

[@sallyannwheeler6327]

Exactly!

[@DyranHunter]

This. 100%. These films made the message STICK.

[@smolsews3760]

Absolutely. I'm only 28 but I'm still absolutely terrified of not wearing a seat belt, people speeding, not looking when I cross the road, house fires etc. I even still move the pans on the hob so the handles are over the counter not hanging off the edge

[@femboycookies]

Thats the exact purpose of them and it's a shame they aren't common today. Sometimes they appear on online tv. But the last one I fondly remember was in 2013 a rail safety one about going on a bear hunt

[@jonathanpringle8238]

it is meant to scare you so you never do it again. even 45 years later its still ingrained in your mind and that is a good thing, it proved the concept worked

[@BraceletyLoveIcy]

*read my community post*

[@bereal6590]

That's true, I remember many of these. A good idea really.

[@MrsBubblewrap.....LeighSimi]

yup also a reason why we all survived we'd leave the house inthe morning and not return until tea time for food.

[@karenexell8201]

The one with the kid going up a electricity pylon to get his kite terrified me so much it put me off flying a kite at all, that said these films worked, I remember most of them today.

[@Dgboroflyer]

Well we all survived.. so I guess they worked. Although I still have a fear of fridges

[@tibsie]

"He's drowning in a mud pit" That's not a mud pit. That's a slurry pit on a farm. If you don't know what slurry is, it's the other liquid cows produce. It develops a crust that looks like you could walk on it if you didn't know better. Drowning in mud would be preferable.

[@KillingDeadThings]

If the poor soul that falls into a slurry pit is lucky (unlucky) it'll be the fumes that get them. Many farm accidents of this sort inevitably end with family members and colleagues often going in to attempt rescue and also being overcome by the fumes and unfortunately, all too often multiple deaths occur. It really can take as little as one breath of methane etc and its game over.

[@immoralreplicant1332]

Thankfully things have moved on. Today if we want to drown in shite we can watch reality TV.

[@mattleppard1970]

As kids we used to sneak onto a sewage farm to check it out. Even then we knew not to walk on the brown circles 😂

[@Subar_Sama]

So you basically drown in shit. Gross.

[@reecewatson2678]

American psa: shows a egg frying “this is your brain on drugs” British psa: shows a child dieing because you drove 40 in a 30

[@markhowards420]

That's not a brain , it's breakfast..

[@leeeastwood6368]

@@markhowards420 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@Dr_Vix]

@@reecewatson2678 I mean we all like a fried egg.

[@Oakeybloke]

Wasn't it "if you hit me at 30mph there's an 80% chance I'll live, if you hit me at 40mph there's an 80% chance I'll die", in the child's voice, followed by an on-screen message of "speed kills". Kinda worked. I'll always remember that, and quietly wince as trains go by if I'm nearby, thinking about that scream and the train's horn 😅

[@reecewatson2678]

@ yeah it was that but i swear it showed the kid on the road bloody

[@rhysepoos]

I'm honestly really proud of our public information films. They represent a pragmatic attitude that many of us have in Britain. Nobody wants to scare children, but we'd much rather have children terrified by a film than have them run over or burn to death. I'm also proud that we don't shy away from the truth. Adults need to be treated like adults; we shouldn't be "protected" from horrible issues such as alcoholism, child abuse, road deaths etc. Only a well-informed society can tackle these issues properly.

[@excempt6675]

i remember some of those, and while they were horrific to watch and see, they did work and i can honestly say from all the kids in my youth we kept away from farms, railways, power lines and the likes as we remembered the ads and that we knew the locations where not a play area, and we grew up well informed and adjusted and taught our kids the same.

[@dbedford1000]

Growing up in the UK in the 70s I found these educational videos, to be extremely beneficial. As I think somebody has already commented back in the 70s we didn’t sugarcoat things. Life was real and we faced the issues, something we don’t do now . Who is better off as a result, we wanted children to listen and learn which they did.

[@pennyroyalt2542]

We most definitely did. It really worked, and I still remember them now. Life simply isn't fluffy, although these day's I think I'll have to retract that.

[@Kat-mu8wq]

Yep. Now we have 0 discipline and 0 of these adverts/short films and 13 year olds going around stabbing people because there's no consequences.

[@richard1311]

They were still showing them in the 90s. I remember the one where the kid climbs into the electric station and touches the transformer. Never forget the burned trousers.

[@johnpaulgoult4787]

I'm still Hella scared of messing with anything near mains electricity. Or: Invisible instant death

[@jonathanemptage1593]

Yeah I remember that one too but i think i saw it at cubs.

[@patwatson6468]

Used to use these films before the school holidays when I was teaching. They were always a discussion starter, I worked in school that was termed ‘interesting’ in the type of children we taught. If I saved one child’s life, then I consider it ‘job done’.

[@Drago_Whooves]

@@patwatson6468 better some nightmares than empty seats

[@dcarbs2979]

I remember a train one from the 90's. The school invited the local railway to have a show about it. The film showed someone tripping and getting burned on the 3rd rail. Still remember the 2 smoke clouds from the legs burning on the rail and child in a wheelchair afterwards.

[@StephenSilverbeard]

In the 1970's there was no attempt the sugar coat the consequences of doing stupid things, remember attending a safety course for working at height on dock cranes. The message was blunt, using the safety equipment, e.g. a harness, was your responsibility, so was the consequences of not using it.

[@shirleycampbell6772]

That's why us Gen Xers are crazy 😂😂

[@doggieclaude]

Horror movies were inspired by British public safety films, not the other way around 😆

[@tjat-cool]

so ture 🤣

[@Dr_Vix]

🤣🤣 yup we don’t fuck around. Check my fire alarms every hour change though 😉 - always remember that one!

[@Rachel_M_]

🤣

[@stephenlee5929]

@@Dr_Vix 'You did swear (promise) didn't you?'

[@TylerRumple]

😂

[@t.a.k.palfrey3882]

Which would you prefer, as a dad? Having your child cry because they saw a scary film about taking care to keep away from railway tracks, or being the dad having to pick up your badly injured son/daughter after he/she had been hit by a train - or maybe their corpse from the morgue? 🤔

[@TylerRumple]

Very good point

[@clairelouise4063]

they worked, i am still alive! i didn't play on railway lines, run with scissors or with a kojak lollipop in my mouth! had lights n a bell on my bicycle, didnt talk to strangers and was always home when the street lights went on..... aged 5, having been out all day on my own with the dog, jam butties and a bonio!

[@HelenH-fk2jh]

And I bet you didn't pick up a sparkler on fireworks night from the wrong end either!

[@michellejones5541]

​@@HelenH-fk2jh they went into a bucket of water in our garden in my family after my grandma's saw that advert

[@Donkey_Oatie]

@@HelenH-fk2jh I did... But I was only 4. I didn't do it again though... I wish I'd watched a public safety film. 😂 The Dark water film staring Death, was the one that scared me the most.

[@HelenH-fk2jh]

@@Donkey_Oatie 😆Aw, see, you missed the one (think it might've been 80s) where the little girl ends up with giant bandaged fingers

[@SteveParkes-Sparko]

These Ads WORKED - inasmuch as they drove home the message about using common sense and being AWARE of all these potential dangers around us. Kids naturally tend to think they're invulnerable and they can show off and be as reckless as they want - but these very graphic ads showed them (and parents) how easy it was for things to go horribly wrong - and made everyone think twice about letting kids play around such potentially dangerous places!

[@Queenfloofles]

It wasn't just the films, we got told awful things. David "Darth Vader" Prouse as the Green Cross code man (he was lovely). He came to my school and I got picked as the demonstration child. We lived at the other side of the A1 so they were always telling us about children that had been run over. At middle school they bought out a burnt blazer and told us in grim detail how it had melted into the child's skin because the child had played with fireworks. Another time we got told about how two kids had be drowned from falling in the river. They loved telling us how children had died. I still played in the river. So if you wonder where the British dark humour comes from I think this has a big part of it.

[@MonsterJuiced]

We've always had dark humour mind you, most famous examples come from the victorians, but our medieval ancestors championed it to :)

[@Queenfloofles]

@MonsterJuiced true 😁

[@Adam_Le-Roi_Davis.]

Tyler, all the kids from the '60 and '70s in the U.K. remember these films as they stay with you, some of them were really creepy, one of my favourites was The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water, the one you saw a part of with what looked like Death in it.

[@zoefarr2600]

And the narrator was Donald Pleasance...

[@Adam_Le-Roi_Davis.]

@@zoefarr2600 Yes, he was, I remember that well, he had the perfect voice for it.

[@bethcushway458]

And 80's! We were subjected to this too! I'm still bloody traumatised 😂

[@Kat-mu8wq]

Tyler's comments about the AIDS ones were a bit iffy.. like Children in Africa are still dying of AIDS, it has nothing to do with "the times" but education and medication. If you get HIV now and start medication immediately it will stop it turning into AIDS, obviously you'll have to take extra precautions if you're going to have sex including mentioning to your partner that you have the disease.

[@geniej]

I used to watch them never traumatised or needing therapy it was just part of growing up.

[@brigidsingleton1596]

As an adult in his 30's, Tyler seems traumatised already... I wonder how his American sensitive nerves would've coped with such graphic public warning films... I'm not sure if he could grow up with such TV ads... Has this video shown the discarded fridges left out without their doors being removed and left on waste grounds?! Or the children trying to retrieve their toys from the towers which run electric cables across the countryside...?

[@stephenlee5929]

One of the problems with this method, the victims don't realise they are traumatised, so we never seek therapy. 🤔

[@HelenH-fk2jh]

@@brigidsingleton1596 To be fair, I def found them traumatic as a kid - they were meant to be!

[@enemde3025]

American TV ads sell you medication/legal services. British TV ads educate. I have seen most of these on TV.

[@therealmckoy6772]

That's a gross over generalisation

[@Nimmers1234]

​@@therealmckoy6772 OK American ads sell medication and super unhealthy food to be sold in mass portions and British ads educate 🤣

[@sweetlikechocolate437]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/iHXXd3dse6yNra8&lc=Ugx_bo52Z7HS2vsgcTV4AaABAg&si=dY135UwfmaoOKbha

[@Dr_Vix]

@@enemde3025 don’t forget health insurance!

[@dbedford1000]

Growing up in the UK in the 70s I found these educational videos, to be extremely beneficial. As I think somebody has already commented back in the 70s we didn’t sugarcoat things. Life was real and we faced the issues, something we don’t do now . Who is better off as a result?

[@michellejones5541]

I grew up in the 60s and 70s and when I look at what snowflakes we are raising now I'm glad I had my youth when I did

[@Abogado-Del-Diablo]

I’m 62 and still a motorcyclist. The one you saw with the motorbike hitting the car was a campaign called “Think Bike!” in the 70s & 80s, to make car drivers more aware of motorcycles around them. This was in response to the huge increase of deaths at that time.

[@shaunw9270]

"Think Once , Think Twice , Think Bike !"...or on The Young Ones , "Think Once, Think Twice, Think don't drive your car on the pavement" 😊

[@Abogado-Del-Diablo]

@@shaunw9270 I was a motorcycle courier at the time in London. Every day I went to work my mum would say “watch out for the cars, remember that film on tv”😂😂😂. But they got the message across.

[@glyndavies2334]

Sensible children, l have no power over them. I'll be back ack ack ack. As the grim reaper 's cloak sinks beneath the surface of a cold dank pond.

[@michellejones5541]

The think bike campaign still runs today

[@Abogado-Del-Diablo]

@@michellejones5541 that’s really interesting I was completely unaware. I assume it’s on mainstream TV as I don’t ever watch it.

[@Li.Siyuan]

I'm 72, almost 73 and I remember these very well. As others have already stated, we weren't wrapped up in cotton wool, we played outside with our brothers, sisters and friends for hours on end and had no outside influence to distract us or prevent us from growing up as normal, well adjusted adults.

[@paulmilner8452]

i'm 47 i miss them days until 1998 without mobile phones (Cell for Americans) we were just living life as free as possible and fun

[@giftofthewild6665]

OK but all of you boomers saying "we weren't wrapped up in cotton wool" were the parents that wrapped us millennials up in cotton wool... I remember my mother (grew up in the 60s playing in the street) constantly worrying about something happening to us whenever we went out without her, and constantly reiterating not to walk off with strangers or get in cars, or walk on train tracks etc. She was a complete panic monger. Probably due to these stupid films.

[@libbybethuk]

​@giftofthewild6665 bear in mind it's thanks to your mothers warnings you're here to type this

[@paulmilner8452]

yes we used to show this because it shocked kids into thinking ..... imagine that how terrible, now everyone is protected by safety shocks they do stupid things... what a world weve evolved into

[@Rachel_M_]

Every week we hear of an influencer who wins a Darwin Award.

[@jacquie2004]

Exactly. They made us think.

[@princesspeach729]

They worked tho. I'm 47 and don't play around near railway lines or if my Frisbee gets stuck in a pylon it's staying there. Who needs a Frisbee anyway?

[@BraceletyLoveIcy]

*read my community post*

[@badgerbane]

My mom would always say to me that if something gets stuck somewhere dangerous, leave it. 'I can buy new stuff, but I can't buy another of you'. This was before Angelina Jolie went on to prove that you can, in fact, buy another child.

[@AcanthaDante]

​@@badgerbaneLook at Dianne Downs's interview around her trial. To try and make her look deserving of a lesser sentence she got pregnant before she went to trial.

[@Mel91746]

🤣🤣 I’m so sorry but this just made me laugh 🤣🤣

[@MarkKnightSHG]

the frisbee one stuck with me too. I still remember it vividly...

[@Fadedexjw]

The firework ones are still in my mind. My daughter asked me the other day why i was giving rules for sparklers when she already knows them. I said you never saw the public films i watched as a child and they scared me 😮

[@margaretnicol3423]

A kid dying in a fire is not 'horror' - it's real life!! Welcome to the real world. Come out of your Disney bubble!

[@clairelouise4063]

the fire work films were the most shocking....... they worked, though!

[@robcrossgrove7927]

@@clairelouise4063 Well, not for Bob Mortimer 😁

[@Jessepigman69]

Yeah I was scared shitless of fireworks.

[@clairelouise4063]

@@robcrossgrove7927 good point, well made! i love that story

[@libbybethuk]

Well I was a child in the 60s we grew up with this we don't need the safety tips needed now things like don't iron clothes you are wearing.

[@Molikai]

Americans reacting to this is always hysterical.

[@stevec5922]

It's not a mud pit, it's a slurry pit...literally S*iT! I remember 'The spirit of dark and lonely water' scared the hell out of me as a kid!...worked!

[@sallyannwheeler6327]

A mud pit🤦🏻‍♀️😂

[@snakefollower]

Definitely far worse than a mud pit

[@dant-vj2gl]

Good times. Reality made us stronger and wiser.

[@t.a.k.palfrey3882]

American tv sugar coats everything. UK, other European, and Aussie tv does so too, but also includes scenes depicting the real consequences of bad choices. Bad driving may kill people, so don't block out the bodies, for example. US kids grow up thinking all the warnings they get are exaggerated, because the tv/online footage they see every day never shows death, injury, blood, etc. in real life.

[@mericet39]

I remember these from when I was a child. I wasn't traumatised. It didn't make me scared to go out. It was just educational, but it worked. Also Protect and Survive - that was the really pointless one. It could just be shortened to "In the event of a nuclear attack, just die. It's all over."

[@OneTrueScotsman]

I remember them showing these in school. Including two kids getting electrocuted by playing around some electric equipment. Also getting stuck in abandoned fridges. The sex ed program they showed was pretty graphic too. No way they'd show anything of the sort today.

[@paulmilner8452]

and that's why today is ermmm wait for it useless

[@debbiecollin1610]

People are to easily upset these days the woke generation is alive and well and need to toughen up

[@tinap8227]

To be honest, a good amount of fear can promote respect.

[@hazelmurdoch6529]

I'm 56, and to be honest, UK Gen-Xers grew up with all sorts of horrifying Public Information films Death by water was terrifying, Apaches was horrifying, but all the ones with electric towers and kites or frisbees were... terri-*frying* usually. We grew up as the last free-range generation, before kids were barely allowed to play in their back gardens, so they tried to scare us straight from accidentally killing ourselves. Try seeing if you can find the "Charlie says..." adverts from the 1970s about not going off with strangers.

[@peachygirl2374]

As someone who grew up n the 90s-2000s I have to disagree, I also wondered around the moors for miles with my friends and often told to play outside. 🤣

[@Dawn.marie.crafter]

Omg Charlie says. Now there's some memories

[@kaereste1]

I was thinking of Charlie Says too and the couple who used to sit on the beach eating ice cream, waving at drowning people.

[@hazelmurdoch6529]

@@kaereste1 the woman was Petunia - that's the Learn to Swim one

[@kaereste1]

@@hazelmurdoch6529 Thank you! I just couldn’t bring her name to mind. Well remembered.

[@margaretnicol3423]

Kids were out and about doing stuff. They were't hunched over a device, not moving from their chair. There's more danger in that than kids who know nothing about the outside world.

[@paulmilner8452]

totally agree Margaret , i'm Josh i'm 12 (i'm not really but i could be if someone is not educated on online security)

[@sallyannwheeler6327]

Well said!

[@AbbeyBee]

I'm shocked 'Threads' isn't in this video, I remember watching that in Secondary School in the 2000's during a history lesson about The Cold War. Though technically a film and not a Public Information Video. It was designed to be highly realistic and educate people about what would happen if Britain was exposed to a nuclear attack. Over 20 years later, I still remember how explicit and horrifying it was.

[@helenroberts1107]

I remember in the 70's watching these in school and at home on tv. They were terrifying

[@Inucroft]

still saw some of these in the 90s in school aswell. The main one that stuck with me was the lad who went into a transformer station after a fysbee. And in the early 2000s they rolled out the old Train Safety vids cause of a recent child fatality on the nearby railway

[@tyarymynydd]

…..but they work! It’s not for mere entertainment. Even up to the 60s, there were still films advising against picking up ordnance found lying around, nearly 20 years after the war.

[@Ladybird91]

Lol you make me giggle. The clips explained why they chose to make the clips so scary, then you spend the next few minutes being surprised at, and then asking why, it's so scary. You often mishear/ misread tiny but important bits of information in your vids. It is part of what makes you so adorable and entertaining to watch. ❤😍💋

[@hiyaimamelia]

I’m 21. I now live in Scotland but I grew up in England. I remember in year six, the final year of primary school, East Riding of Yorkshire Council went around all the schools showing us incredibly traumatising videos called “buswise”. Basically because in secondary school you get the bus to school, it was like don’t mess around buses or they’ll kill you. And it had a lot of blood and gore and it was a dead child as a ghost that was haunting the entire film. My entire class had nightmares for weeks following and loads of parents complained about it. 😭

[@hiyaimamelia]

I found the trailer for it. The actual video was like half an hour long and it was horrifying and we were all forced to watch it then quizzed after to make sure we retained the dangers, but this is like a brief edit of it: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iWjVoJ6AardjodUsi=g-ZfPblMl04QEZ_R

[@BoredCanister]

The 1 I always remember is the car that smooshed the kids having a picnic it was about drink driving

[@Toni-islandlife]

I remember one in the 70’s about being careful as you answer a knock on your front door and a man with an axe there. Also one about Charlie says. It was aimed at children’s safety with crossing the road.

[@Cherismile]

Loved the Charlie says!!

[@user-PuppyDan]

I remember charlie.

[@sallyannwheeler6327]

I remember Charlie, but not ‘Here’s Johnny!’🪓😳😂

[@juliajoyce4535]

I remember the axe man, it was a cartoon about fitting a door chain, the tune was “Green Door” but the words were changed to “who’s that coming to the front door” or similar. edit, I found it on KZbin Door Chain 1976 public information film. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mn6Uq31udstsr7csi=DuJeipn6K_3XcN9F

[@Toni-islandlife]

Yes thats it. Scared me when I was little 😂

[@kaereste1]

I was a child in the 1970s and remember these films well. To be honest, they were extremely effective and educated us on the dangers around us - definitely more effectively than having a ‘teacher’ telling us about this in a more traditional educational way, a methodology that would have been ignored. These were not ignorable and laid out the consequences of actions in a very straightforward way.

[@johnroberthines7811]

I'm 68yrs old and remember these, but wasn't traumatised by any of them, us kids were tougher back then and did so many dangerous things. Obviously we had no Internet and only got toys etc on birthdays and Christmas, so we had to make our own entertainment when out and about playing, exploring, around dangerous places etc it was fun though and I think the majority of us kids survived thankfully 👍. No health and safety back then and no overprotective parents, we knew danger but it was exiting testing ourselves and learning by our mistakes.

[@SpiritmanProductions]

THOSE ARE SPOOFS! The silly ones towards the end aren't real government ones. Listen to the narrator! 😂

[@Uthric]

I grew up in the 70’s in the U.K. and I remember some of these adverts on the tv. I can’t say they traumatised me. Maybe we were emotionally stronger in those days.

[@Raven_Haze]

The public service video where the child who's dead at the side of the road - time goes backwards and when she is alive again, she says "hit me at 40 and i'll die, Hit me at 30 and i might survive" That creeped me out when i was young

[@thomasjones6216]

Worked though; if you still remember it.. the one I remember was the bloke who sees the dead kid looking at him everywhere he goes Can't even sleep without the kid staring at him... KILL YOUR SPEED OR LIVE WITH THE CONSEQUENCES...

[@weedle30]

Us adults of certain ages, we really don’t need warnings on our Starbucks coffee cups saying “caution! Hot liquids” or words to that effect, because we were TAUGHT in our tender childhood, how to recognise that drinks that had been made with boiling liquids would, funnily enough, be ermmmm…HOT! I can remember seeing Health & Safety films that warned parents of babies and young children about burns and scalds - how to safely place anything containing a hot liquid or sauce (and before the days of teabags just being dropped into a mug) - something like a teapot for instance on a table or worktop counter - out of reach of tiny hands that might reach up to touch and grab things and certainly not placed on with a table that had a table cloth that over lapped the surface…a crawling toddler or a young child might pull on the cloth and pull it towards them. Seeing the slo mo of the teapot lid falling off, the teapot tipping over and the just boiled water falling down ….and even though there is no actual child in the next part of the film just hearing a scream! And you just knowing what would have happened to the baby…that memory has lived and will live with me forever! When my children were small…. I “remembered” this film …..out of sight is out of reach! A lesson learned hard, like these tough and hard hitting films depicted, is a lesson learned well and never forgotten - the Safety films aimed at children. - even more so!

[@staceygrahame2504]

They didn’t traumatise, they educated. As a kid who grew up in Yorkshire UK in the 80s, we weren’t a bunch of wusses. They never scarred us and never traumatised us and we never needed therapy. But we did learn to not play with fire, not play on rail tracks and be careful of water.

[@nicksmith6526]

It’s a different breed today. We understood that 💩 happens back then. Sugar coating the truth (as they do today), is far more horrifying to me!

[@SamuelDurkin]

As a 52 year old. These where mostly directed at my age group. Kids used to play out in summer, mostly unsupervised. These where there to make sure you didn't ply on railways, power lines, or just run into busy roads. I think you should watch some all the way through. The effect is to make sure you never do something dangerous as these films will live in your mind forever. And yes we still make em, most seem aimed at drunk driving and smoke detectors these days, as kids don't play unsupervised as much these days. The last few things in this film were all parody.. but so well done they look real.

[@Lynnimod]

I remember seeing the videos on public TV about AIDS. That really was scary!

[@Michelle-kf8me]

I remember watching these ads in the 70s in school when i was about 8.i would never go near power lines.when i think back about it now i never told my parents.😮

[@deathabillypete570]

I was a kid in the 70s and remember all of these delights. Still can't think of farms without remembering the kid drowning if liquified shite 🤢🤣. And I was a teen when the aids one was out; my entire generation was having that ad forced on us at the exact time hormones were kicking in 😂

[@juliemartin4267]

I’m a British child of the 70’s and remember every single one of those public safety ads

[@thorthaksake8680]

This kind of stuff was shown to us in schools, I watched a lot of them in the classroom in 2003-05 When I was roughly 8-10. Never played near power lines again. :) The most memorable is one called "Shockball" from 1989. You'll find it on KZbin.

[@jenniferhayton6185]

I'm 40 this year. At the age of 9 I participated in something called crutial crew which was essentially all the ways you could die as a child and how to avoid it. With blood, dummies and videos lol

[@harleywebb9852]

We was made of stronger stuff back then, no we wasn't traumatised. We learned to be careful.

[@Trebor74]

Imagine the "Trigger warnings" before they showed these today 🙂

[@Wonderland2097]

@@Trebor74jus making up random scenarios to be mad at now, safety videos are still a thing shown in schools all across the country & nope they don’t have trigger warnings lol O.o

[@joshua_hailey]

@@Trebor74they don’t have trigger warnings for public safety films 😂

[@robbrook224]

I'm 52 and I remember those Infomercials very well. When I was in Infant School (Kindergarten to you in the US) I lived on a Royal Air Force base. Every Monday in between Dad going to work and me having to get up to go to School they would test the Air Raid Sirens. Our local siren was right outside my bedroom window. It scared the life of of me because of the series of Protect And Survive films. I was only 4 or 5 at the time so I knew nothing about Nuclear War, but there was a stern male voice talking about warnings, death and putting dead bodies outside. So every time they tested the siren I thought I was going to die! Years later Frankie Goes To Hollywood sampled a clip from one of them at the start of Two Tribes. When I first heard it I broke into a cold sweat. Even now the sound of a siren makes me feel uneasy. The thing is, The Exorcist was banned on video until the year 2000, but the Government had no problem traumatising my youth with those short films!

[@Mymerlot]

Oh dear lord, I didn’t think I’d ever see some of these again. I remember seeing some of these as a little tiny kid and being utterly traumatised by them most notably the nuclear war ones. And the AIDS one had such an impact it shaped what I did for a career many years later. I’m an advertiser’s dream haha!! Does anyone remember if there was one about quicksand? Because I was terrified of getting stuck in quicksand as a kid and I don’t know if it was one of these films or just signs at the beach!

[@BarbaraNixon-h8b]

Kids have no real concept of possible consequences and danger. It is important that parents and kids have their attention drawn to safety issues. I wonder how many lives have been saved by these films.

[@Sleepinginbetweengaming]

i always loved the " blam murdered children" part of my childhood TV and be told "charlie says don`t run into traffic" from a cartoon cat going meoow meoow moeow

[@lampyman101]

British PIF's were off the scale. I remember being shown 'Play Safe' (the sub-station one where a kid goes to get his fisbee) at around 7-8 years old and it er, well, it stuck with me. By the way, that 'mud pit' was a silage pit.... Cow c**p lol

[@tonysadler5290]

Hello Tyler - I remember these "Public Information" films. Most of the ones you show were broadcast in the mid 70s - 80s. They were quite effective. We all looked forward to them as they were shown at a time between programmes, when we could all get up and make tea! We all referred to the Nuclear bomb film " protect and Survive" as "Neglect and Die"

[@hollieBlu303]

Protect & Survive? Nah..The animation 'When The Wind Blows' by Raymond Briggs (also wrote 'The Snowman') is HORRIFYING because the protagonists FOLLOW these instructions. Would love for Tyler to check out some of our "cartoons". Bowie did and awesome track to the animation too - also called When The Wind Blows...if anyone wants to know. Fair warning. This is a tough watch

[@Lazmanarus]

*an not and

[@PrettyBlueFlowers]

Omg I remember they put that on tv a few years ago. We sat down to watch it thinking it would be a sweet Raymond Briggs film as usual… we regretted that so much.

[@leeeastwood6368]

@@PrettyBlueFlowers, but do you still play with nuclear bombs when you find them on an old WW2 bomb site?😁

[@PrettyBlueFlowers]

@ to be fair, I’ve remembered to always keep away from them 😂 same way I wouldn’t go anywhere near a farm as a child, Apaches worked a little too well!

[@Nasha842]

IIRC we still had a good number of these sorts of things playing in TV adspaces right up until that government department got shut down. One that's always stuck with me was a drink-driving ad, I can't remember the year, that had a guy driving in his car, loud music blaring and clearly having the time of his life cut with footage from a children's birthday party. Long story short, it ends up with the guy losing control of his car and barrel rolling through a garden fence into this children's birthday party, killing all of the children present with the tagline: "Don't drink and drive, could you live with the shame?" as the driver of the care crawls from the wreckage of his vehicle, slightly cut up whilst surrounded by parents of dead children all wailing in agony.

[@sandraferreira428]

I'm 63 and watched most if not all of these. Certain ones like preparing for a nuclear strike gave me nightmares for literally decades. But I do think that the freedoms of back then when children could just roam for hours led to many especially when you think about the real deaths that led to these PSA's

[@atlanticx100]

It beats your "Duck and cover" PSA of the 50/60s LOL

[@somthingbrutal]

for kids scary is more effective. don't forget we also grew up with darker kids tv than in the US with shows like Dr Who and the very creepy and introduced me to the concept of existential dread, Sapphire and Steel

[@libbybethuk]

Yeah doctor who I loved that show from day 1 still watch it now I'm 69 lol. My brother 18 months younger than me was terrified of the daleks coming I said kevin all we have to do is get some water and a pack of biscuits go upstairs we will be OK they have wheels they can't get us upstairs he felt safe and was OK. Big sisters can't save their brothers now with that plan daleks can fly lolol

[@CHALICEinBLOOM]

Ones I remember from the 90s were; a boy playing near pilons dying from electricity, a boy suffocating playing in sand dunes, a driver veering off road and running down a picnic of children. Scarring stuff.

[@user-PuppyDan]

There was also one about a kid climbing in a dumped fridge and it was something like remove the doors save a life. It showed a kid climbing inside the fridge and getting stuck only to be found later by the bin men.

[@j.w2000]

I remember watching a substation psa at school scared the bejeasus out of me, still remember what it taught me to this day not to go near substations! I was a child of the 00s!

[@andrewbowman4611]

These were both nasty and effective films, but ones which hammered the message home in no uncertain terms. Trust me when I say that these films saved lives; way more than a short news item would ever manage.

[@helenwood8482]

I was born in 1970. Some of these ads haunt me to this day, but they did work.

[@barrywood7322]

I watched most of these growing up and they never did me any harm and never even traumatised me, but we grew up with rough and tumble instead of cotton wool.

[@Trebor74]

Although I've never touched a sparkler since. And if the wife gives them to the kids they stay in a bucket till they rust.

[@badgerdax1763]

Gonna be wholly honest, getting these shown in school were like the highlights, it was practically a movie day! And they had good messages, things that seem like common sense but parents forget to teach, because most of them don't know you're running out to play on the farmer's gadgets two fields over, etc. I still vividly remember one with an older teen not wanting to be ditched with babysitting his little brother, and his friends daring him to climb an electric box, and the little brother being electrocuted to death. And the little short of the girl being dragged onto the road was played constantly before movies, little me had the advert line memorised XD Truly the saddest part about recent history is the last couple of generations haven't had any new videos like these to watch, and now they're more reckless than ever.

[@Hadrian-p7f]

I was brought up on these psa's as a child and yes you took it in and made you THINK before you do 😂😂😂

[@frankiemcewan2515]

I'm a Brit, born 1986. This style of advert was still ubiquitous throughout the 90s and dribbled on into the early 2000s. I still have occasional recurring nightmares about some of them: one about testing your smoke alarm regularly in which the entire family (including Grandad and the family dog) all died of smoke inhalation before the fire was spotted by neighbours, and another in which a teenage boy refused to wear his seatbelt in the back seat while his mother was driving and then killed her when he was thrown forward against her seat when she had to brake suddenly. That one particularly scarred me. I remember the boy's body crushing the driver's seat and then the mother having no recognisable face left. I used to run from the room, or close my eyes and block my ears when it came on the telly. I've always thought these adverts do nothing; they frighten naturally cautious people like me who will test their smoke alarms and wear their seatbelts anyway, and the people they're trying to reach will carry on thinking: "It's not going to happen to ME!"

[@gwilymjones1298]

I was born in 1989 and u remember these types of videos being shown on TV and in school, sadly I don't think they are shown anymore

[@BraceletyLoveIcy]

*read my community post*

[@Inucroft]

They are, just in a less traumatic form.

[@HelenH-fk2jh]

These were terrifying staples of my 70s childhood! The police used to come and show some of them in primary school. But I have never felt the need to climb a pylon to retrieve a kite, or get my frisbee from a power station or cross a live railway line, it's true. It's also true, though, that we were expected to "play out" unsupervised by adults for most of the holidays and just come back home for teatime (dinner time) so I guess the idea was to let us continue to do that but give us terrifying warnings about being responsible what could go wrong if we acted stupidly.

[@Arcothefox]

I remember and am still traumatized by the video with the kids on the farm. That one was horrendous and we were forced to watch it in school. But if you want other horrifying British things to look at, The Way the Wind Blows, and Threads were both horrific Nuclear safety films, despite being proper films, they get used as safety films now.

[@RltchieI]

That child drowning the the cesspit was from a short film called Apaches & was about the dangers of playing on a farm. I saw that at Primary school around the age of 6 or 7 & it showed quite graphic deaths of children due to playing about on a farm. The credits were every child that had died on a farm that year.

[@JoMo1965]

I remember watching the first version of The Finishing Line when I was about 10. Very shocking.

[@BraceletyLoveIcy]

*read my community post*😊

[@spencerludkin]

We weren't all soft and offended by everything back then. It was just part of growing up.

[@indeawoolhouse3980]

and some of us did safety training involving dealing with fires, electrocution, drowning etc. it was like a real life public safety film and was terrifying for me as a 9/10 year old

[@melodysopinionfrannie4300]

You should check out the Australian aids ads…. No one was having sex in the 80’s they were so damn scary! Grim reapers bowling over whole families… they were awesome!

[@bjørnjacobsengaming]

We also had those scare campaigns in Denmark, and they never worked. People responded at first, but after a few views, people just got mad and ignored them. The videos took on a "the wolf is coming" effect all too quickly. In the late 80s, humor was used in the videos; it had a much better effect. It turned out that you can convey a serious message with humor, sometimes a little dark humor, but still humor. People are generally more attentive when you can make them laugh than when they are taught and dictated what is right.

[@winterscoming8124]

i remember these well.. the train one was scary.

[@jonathanpringle8238]

the electrical substation was the most powerful one, the cinema version was more graphic than tv version

[@BraceletyLoveIcy]

*read my community post*

[@MonsterJuiced]

UK person here, grew up through the 90's and we also saw these in school and tv. You're right they did traumatise me and warned well ahead of time to not climb electric pylons, play with fireworks, start fires, look both ways before crossing a road (i got ran over once before i saw the film), don't go with strangers (did that too when i was 4 and didn't know any better), don't climb tall things and so much more. These things became more and more horrific, a really famous one about drinking and driving i think shows a little girl get run over in a really brutal way, you see her corpse all bloodied with her arms snapped n stuff. You saw a little bit at the end of video

[@nuttyrockchickart3040]

the point of most of them such as 'don't play on/near rail road tracks' you will die if a train hits you or your friends! the whole point was too show the public what does happen if you are ignoring safety signs etc. yes it might be shocking but it was supossed shake you into not being stupid and getting killed

[@Chris-j8i]

In the 70s I was 11years old and school projectionist and showed all these films. I would freeze frame the gory bits for my friends at break time. Happy days.

[@victoriaroberts7034]

The seatbelt one with the mother driving her children to school "she knew her killer... It was her son who wasn't wearing a seatbelt... After crushing her to death he sat back down"

[@michellejones5541]

I remember that one vividly

[@victoriaroberts7034]

@michellejones5541 me too!!

[@libbybethuk]

Yeah I remember that mum always told us fasten your belts before we set off. Lol

[@Lazmanarus]

There's one on YT made by Gwent Police, about some teens texting while driving, that was shown on TV a few years ago.

[@michellejones5541]

@@libbybethuk clunky click every trip was the one I remember the most it was shown a lot when seat belts were first made mandatory

[@michealfist9277]

Death hanging around that pond made me terrified of deep water to this day. Stranger danger was very real back in the 70’s. I remember a man calling me over to his car once. I just ran away. . He may have been innocently asking for directions, but thanks to these films I wasn’t taking any chances. I used to be sent out to play, told to mind the roads and not talk to any strangers. I think my mum was more worried about me getting run over more than anything else.

[@TerenceDixon-l6b]

The presenter also showed video from 1976 and the 1980s (Maggie Thatcher) so it wasn't just about the immediate post was period, after all very few people could be bothered about TV, or even had, TV sets in those days. Drowning, but not in a mud pit, but in a slurry pit of animal manure on a farm, hence the films on 'Farm Safety'. Regarding railway safety, remember, unlike the USA, we have many railway lines criss-crossing the country and many children were killed playing on and around railways. So you find them horrifying, yet America make some of the worst horror films in the world, often involving chain saws etc. After seeing the results of American education on the internet, especially social media, I question the effectiveness of 'educating' young people about danger, the lessons will be forgotten as soon as they leave class as is history or geography etc.

[@kellieprice8776]

Remember these films from school and TV and I must say they worked I have never played on the railway jumped into unknown water or climbed a pylon.... They definitely make an impression

[@SomeTrainboy]

its not a mud pit, think of a farm

[@lizzygriffiths2365]

I remember having one of these played when I was in primary school, aged around 7 in 2004ish, it was called "Don't take a chance with electricity" and featured two children being eletricuted by trying to retrieve a football from a power substation.

[@misschieflolz1301]

I only experienced the end of these since I was born in the mid 80's, but I vividly remember the ones with kids getting electrocuted, and the ones where kids get their hands burned by a sparkler. You should watch some of them, it'd be great to see reactions to some of the wilder ones lol.

[@theforlanjoker4457]

Did you not get the old ones on video in school because we bloody did lol we loved

[@misschieflolz1301]

@@theforlanjoker4457 Sadly no. They weren't cool like that lol

[@rachelthornberry1240]

I'm honestly surprised it didn't show more recent ones, like a car plowing into a kids birthday party (yes that is real), but then again the video is probably older by now

[@badgerbane]

I remember one when I was a kid about how you should always wear your seatbelt. It had a kid not wearing his to impress his girlfriend, and when the car suddenly stopped (can't remember if it crashed or not) he flew out the front window. He then got back in the car and most of his face had been left behind on the tarmac. That one haunted me. Wore my seatbelt ever since. Effective.

[@Mymerlot]

There’s been a creepy car related one recently, hasn’t there. I think it’s a drink driving one where the guy has killed a little kid and he sees him everywhere he goes like a ghost. That one freaks me out!

[@badgerbane]

@Mymerlot I can't seem to find it on KZbin. Do you have a link or something? I do like to see these but I don't have a TV license any more so I don't see much in the way of ads these days.