This morning I saw yet another headline about a teenager dying in a car accident and suddenly, for the first time in decades, the title Signal 30 popped into my head. Signal 30 was a short film made in 1959, the year I turned 16. It was shown in schools around the nation in an effort to shock and scare teens into driving safely. I remember a large part of our student body being assembled in the auditorium to watch it.
Scenes of actual death and injury aren’t allowed these days in news reports of accidents; I don’t know if they ever were. Rights to privacy and all that. Yet they were included in the film in an effort to educate the viewers, to show the reality of death and result of carelessness rather than Hollywood’s fake gore and violence. It makes me wonder if, as has been proposed by some, footage of actual shooting deaths today would arouse the public even more and finally move lawmakers to act decisively.
My 21-year old granddaughter was in a car accident last week. A driver DUI pulled into her path illegally. Fortunately, she was relatively unscathed, thanks to her seat belt. It left a quite visible abrasion across her shoulder, a testament to its efficacy.
Oh Jim,how scary that must have been! I’m so glad she’s okay.
I think it might impact some but, unfortunately, many teens think it can’t happen to them… they are indestructible. And then there is underage drinking…
Oh sure. If it worked, they’d still be showing such films to teens. But I guess, at the time, they thought it was worth trying.
You’re my age – born in ’43. Which month ?
Re the post, Susan: I have to agree with Janis. Same as rules: you know, “oh that doesn’t mean ME !” ..
April. A fine month.
“Oh that doesn’t mean ME!” is no doubt the response of many to different rules, laws, and suggestions. Everybody is “special.”
the nature of youth that they believe they are immortal
I’m three years older and saw it in a Phys Ed/Health class. As noted by others, it didn’t have any relationship to me since I was such a wonderful driver – at the time. It was only when I began to drive competitively that I realized I wasn’t all that and a bag of chips. Being taught relative skill (in Drivers Ed) would have changed my mind. But at the time (and still) Drivers Ed is a joke. IMHO.
I never took Drivers Ed because it didn’t count for college credit. So my parents got me private driving lessons — a huge blessing because I’d have never been able to learn/drive with other students in the car watching me. (I can’t learn anything new if somebody is watching.) And yes, I knew I’d never speed or drive drunk, or swing into the oncoming lane, or try to beat the train to the crossing, etc. One thing I did love about the movie — it got me out of class!