The operations of an emergency telephone exchange and ambulance service are
explained. Women operating the switchboard relay information about reported
accidents to the ambulance service. Within minutes of receiving a call about an
accident on Shoreditch Road, an ambulance is driving at full throttle towards
the scene. A queue of commuters wait nonchalantly at a bus-stop, while in
another part of London a crowd is congregated around a female blonde-haired
casualty lying prostrate on the road.
A series of careless incidents by pedestrians, drivers and cyclists are
accompanied by images of road safety posters and copies of the Highway Code: a
young boy runs onto road in front of a car; a middle-aged woman meanders between
buses on busy main road; a man in a raincoat steps off the pavement, narrowly
escaping a collision with a cyclist; a tipsy man exits a pub and starts his car
in the wrong gear, nearly knocking over a pedestrian; a child chases a ball into
the road, to the sound of screeching car brakes; a cyclist riding with faulty
brakes hits the back of a lorry and falls off his bike.
Commuter Mr Smith says goodbye to his wife and daughter before driving to
work. It is a 40-minute run, but Mr Smith, knowing the route like the back of
his hand, cuts a few corners and does it in 30 minutes. Mr Smith's morning
routine is repeated - he kisses his wife goodbye and drives to work, taking the
bends wide, until one morning he has to swerve to avoid an oncoming lorry. City
worker Miss Jones' motto to 'keep on walking, they always stop' costs her dearly
when she encounters Mr Williams, whose car brakes aren't working well. Another
fatal collision.
Back at the emergency telephone exchange, an administrator flicks through a
pile of accident reports. The last page is blank. An anonymous man, bored by the
road safety film, gets up and exits the cinema. Convinced that 'accidents only
happen to other people', he walks smugly out of view into the road. The sound of
the screeching of brakes is heard over an image of a 'Get Home Safe and Sound' poster.
