The Yorkshire Film Archive collects, preserves, and shows film made in, or about Yorkshire. Our collections are non-fiction, dating from the 1890s to the present day, and providing a rich and visually compelling record of all aspects of lives, cultures, landscape, industries, major events and everyday activities, many of which are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
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Children's Driving School
A novel way to help prevent children becoming victims of road accidents: have children ride around in toy cars in a miniature town with police comically controlling the traffic!
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Overview
With thousands being killed in traffic accidents, someone at West Yorkshire Police came up with the inspired road safety idea of having children driving toy cars in a model of a town centre. It is difficult to tell who is having the most fun here: the girls with their ponytails driving around the mock streets in their peddle cars, or the police pretending to be themselves and supposedly directing them.
With the post-war increase in traffic, and traffic accidents, there was a clear need for campaigns for road safety. These went back to the end of WWI, with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents being formed later in 1941 – the year which still holds the record for the highest numbers of deaths on the roads (thanks to the blackouts). Campaigns aimed at children ran throughout the 1930s, and were stepped up in the post-war period, with local police forces making their own safety films. This one of the Road Safety Exhibition Belle Vue Barracks in Bradford was filmed by Bradford filmmakers C.H. Wood, who also filmed the adult version of the same event, Crikey. Soon after Tufty Fluffytail appeared in 1953.
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