Should Top Gear be championing road safety?

[fungus]

I have just read this on the ABD website.

Top Gear Made a Scapegoat for Bad Safety
Clarkson & Co Should be Safety Champions say ABD
In yet another insurance company PR exercise, this time by Co-operative Insurance, the BBC's Top Gear has been blamed for creating a 'culture of speeding' amongst young drivers.

The ABD has often condemned these trite surveys, aimed at grabbing column inches by jumping on emotive bandwagons, but this time things have gone a stage further, with roads minister Jim Fitzpatrick being roped in to support the report following a 'Parliamentary Reception'. 1

"The Government is treating Top Gear as scapegoat for the failure of its road safety policies," said ABD spokesman Nigel Humphries. "They have spent the last 20 years demonising speed, hounding and bullying safe drivers and showing total contempt for excellence in driving. Young drivers who have grown up with this are confused about speed and have picked up the cynicism towards road safety and the police shown by their elders. As a result, they know how to avoid speed cameras but its very hard for them to learn to drive safely, so more of them are being killed."

"The tragedy is that Top Gear is in the best position to glamourise safe and excellent driving by telling people how to use speed correctly, because it has the ear of the young. The road safety industry should be courting the programme to this end instead of condemning it. We would challenge Top Gear to rise to this criticism by becoming champions of excellence in driving — teenagers would listen to the STIG if the message made sense."

The survey itself contains few surprises. Why is the fact that most people admit they break the speed limit news, when 95% of police, magistrates and driving instructors do the same? With speed limits being reduced all the time, breaking them is nothing to do with fast driving — normal, steady progress has been made illegal.

Mr Neave of Co-operative insurance trots out the old chestnut that speeding should have the same stigma as drink driving, but there is not a chance of this whilst speed limits are lowered to unacceptable levels and when the police themselves are allowed to speed on duty but not to drink and drive!

Meanwhile, Fitzpatrick himself demands that the one in seven 'extreme speeders' are subject to the 'full force of the law'. Farcical, since the police themselves are at the forefront of the fastest drivers and when he is supporting 50mph limits on rural roads, including many dual carriageways which mean that 70mph behaviour that is legal and perfectly reasonable one day is 'extreme speeding' the next.

"This just shows these people are on another planet and are part of the safety problem not the solution." concludes Humphries.

I agree.Teenagers would listen to the STIG if the message made sense. But from my observations, isn't the STIG
mute?

Seriously though, I think teenagers would listen, and take more notice, if safe driving demonstrations were given by somebody like Clarkson & co, or maybe a racing driver on a programme like Top Gear. Although my children are now in their mid twenties, they are very cynical about politcians, especialy after the recent debacles of this present Government. The problem with anything official in the eyes of teenagers, is that it is boring, and I think that anything to do with officiadom is always going to struggle to reach out to teenagers, who see it as just another restriction.

Nigel ADI
IAM trainee observer

[Porker]

I've long thought several things that are related to this:

i) There aren't any role models for good driving that are well known and accessible to drivers of any age. I suppose the best known (and it's not that well known even then) is the IAM, but they hardly present a particularly attractive image to younger drivers. The Max Driver scheme was well-intentioned but didn't really get off the ground.

ii) I would thoroughly applaud an attempt to show good driving skills on mainstream TV. Whether TG is the right forum is debatable, but it would be better than the vacuum that currently exists.

iii) I believe that graduated licenses for particular vehicle types (alongside the current licensing system for different vehicle classes) would be a very positive incentive for drivers to improve their skills. There would need to be some form of carrot - possibly higher speed limits could apply in certain circumstances to those with higher grade licenses. We could make the tests reasonably demanding - a basic upgrade from standard might require skills equivalent to an IAM pass, with further privileges being awarded for progressively higher standards and the threat of "demotion" for convictions.

The kudos associated with having a high-grade license would, I believe, make them highly desirable and thus encourage many to strive for them. Not everybody, for sure, but then current road safety policy seems to be aimed mainly at the mass of drivers, so presumably my thinking is not so far off the mark in that respect. Essentially, we'd be trying to get a substantial minority or even the majority of drivers to aim to improve their skills, which should have a pronounced effect on those crashes where the driver simply made a mistake rather than being deliberately risk-prone.

I appreciate that there will be those who say that this is too onerous to coordinate but I counter that by saying that any country that manages to spend about 50% of its GDP on public sector activities should be able to find the wherewithal to finance and manage this process. Equally, given that we are told that there's a substantial cost to crashes which would justify, for example, the implementation of a nationwide system of Intelligent Speed Adaptation on a cost-benefit basis, this cannot be easily ruled out as a potential alternative.

regards
P.

[MGF]

Talking of another planet (the ABD seem to have their own) as soon as you start to introduce sensible messages to Top Gear what will happen to the viewing figures. I watch TG for entertainment not education. The idea that you can slip in some education without young people noticing or that they will be happy to continue watching the programme if it bores them with lectures on using speed safely on the road seems misconceived to me.

[Porker]

That seems to be an odd position to take. Do you regard every attempt at communicating with the public at large as being a waste of time?

P.

[MGF]

No, I just think TG has a particular style that its viewers find entertaining. The problem with trying to insert driving advice into the programme is that it will impact on the programme as a whole. How can they behave irrepsonsibly in one section then change hats to demonstrate the safe use of speed in another? Mixed messages may do more harm than good.

Driver education through TV has my full support but I can't see it happening via TG. Maybe 5th Gear?

[Gareth]

How can they behave irrepsonsibly in one section then change hats to demonstrate the safe use of speed in another?

I'm not sure they do behave irresponsibly, and if they do, is that what makes it entertaining? I think they strive hard to give the impression of speed without necessarily doing so. In the UK road tests I remember the cars are often travelling quite slow, although the commentary suggests different. Where they want to go faster, they often use a track. Is that irresponsible?

I don't see a problem with demonstrating the safe use of speed per se, the problem is that the safe use of speed may as often as not be illegal. But driving safely isn't just about speed and it isn't necessarily boring, although it is often presented in both those terms.

[brianhaddon]

I too do not think Top Gear are acting totally irresponsibly. Number one it is entertainment, not education, and so a measure of bravado will creep in. If it changed, to be a more flat capped programme, as it once was, I think it would loose much of its audience. I like the way they point out the shortcomings of present legislation. I like the way they point out many of the contradictions surrounding motoring. I often find myself agreeing with many of their points. I am not too wrapped with the 'races' as Jeremy always (well nearly always) wins - entertaining they may be but there is always a bit of a bias. But that is something different.

I think there is a place for motoring education, whether Top Gear is the right place I don't know. Perhaps using the presenters, and don't forget they are presenters not motoring experts, on another programme may be an approach.

Regards
Brian Haddon

[MGF]

Many of the stunts done for entertainment's sake are irreponsible. The road driving is generally legal. But the road driving is necessarily legal rather than something they are trying to promote. To try and promote good driving as oppoesed to staying within the law conflicts with the nature of the programme. As soon as you start to give driving advice on a TV programme you run the risk of that advice being used incorrectly with bad consequences. To avoid this you would need to totally change the culture of the programme for a particular section. I just can't see it myself.

[Horse]

That seems to be an odd position to take. Do you regard every attempt at communicating with the public at large as being a waste of time?

P.

You could be onto osomething.

Let's get all the boxers and WWF wrestlers on the anti-violence bandwagon, all top pop stars doing anti-drugs campaigns (when they're 'clean'), MPs to close their subsidised restaurants and bars, and all give up smoking and lose weight, Doctors to give up drinking, etc. . . .



Sadly, it ain't gonna happen, is it? As suggested, make it 'boring' and it'll be off air before you can blink, as the viewing figures drop away.

I don't like the way they smash up stuff (I'm sure some collectors cringe and weep as old vehicles are trashed) - but it's entertainment.

Even mainstream TV news is edited by what's 'sexy' - and by what they have footage of - not by what's 'important'.


Interstingly (well, I thought so and you'll have to take my word for it ) I used to think that the 'Police Camera Action' type progs were a sell-out. However, there is a fairly recent theory that we 'learn' road safety from close-calls rather than actual crash involvement. There's some interesting scientific stuff I won't bore you with (ie I can't remember it all, let alone type it in), but there's a possibility - no more - that those progs may go beyond entertainment into education - which was how the original programmes started*.

* When the Met had their first video car in the very early '80s, a Sgt Dave Brugier and PC Ian Kerr started gathering footage to use during training and at events. From that grew the P-C-A progs.

[MiniClubmanEstate]

Top Gear is a great entertainment show, as a factual show it has very little meaning. I do not watch Top Gear and think, what an informative review, I think I'll go out and buy that car they are reviewing, I'm sure I have a spare £200,000 lying around somewhere. They do occasionally do make a review of the sort of car that an average person could afford and consider (Good news!, The Dacia Sandero is available in black!). The recent review of the Ford Fiesta was partially informative but at the same time made a very entertaining review as it raced through the shopping mall, then latter it takes part in an army assault training exercise where we saw how well the electrics are protected from water.
Now based on the informative and entertaining review of a practical small family car it may be possible to implement a few driving tips but a specific section relating to road safety would negatively impact upon Top Gear's regular viewers as it may spoil the entertainment value. Other small changes could include teach Jeremy to pay more attention to the road rather than playing with his iPod, his presentational skills and witty humor alone could be sufficiently expressed verbally. However, if Jeremy and crew were instructed to set an example it would result in a great deal of sarcastic comments in the name of entertainment and could potentially turn road safety into nothing more than a great joke which would be counter productive towards our cause.
I conclude that it is not likely that Top Gear would be a suitable medium in which to promote road safety, as mentioned in another post in this thread, Channel five has a perfect factual program which has a significantly lower budget and some highly skilled professional racing drivers. If you ignore the standard television making regular looks towards the camera, their crew generally display a more responsible attitude towards driving than the Top Gear crew. Persuading Fifth Gear presenters to delve into the world of safe progressive driving could be less challenging whilst giving the show content to attract an additional audience increasing their viewing figures. Fifth Gear could have a nice healthy balance of both road and track driving technique.

[Horse]

FWIW, even 'news' can't always do 'road safety' safely

I complained to BBC South when they covered 'Vision Zero' a while back - with the presenter driving along constantly looking at the camera alongside him.

"It's OK," I was told "There was someone else in the car looking forward!"

[zadocbrown]

I'm doubtful that watching Top gear has a seriously negative influence on people's driving, after all, we see much worse behaviour all around us, every day. I think the politicians should get their own house in order instead of blaming everyone else.

[jasonh]

I'm doubtful that watching Top gear has a seriously negative influence on people's driving, after all, we see much worse behaviour all around us, every day. I think the politicians should get their own house in order instead of blaming everyone else.

Hear here!

God help us if they start making Top Gear into some kind of public information film. I don't think bad drivers get their habits and attitudes from TG, they're ingrained long before that. If people get their views from Top Gear then there is a more fundamental problem to address than road safety!

[MGF]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... -told.html

[Horse]

I'm doubtful that watching Top gear has a seriously negative influence on people's driving, after all, we see much worse behaviour all around us, every day. I think the politicians should get their own house in order instead of blaming everyone else.

Hear here!

God help us if they start making Top Gear into some kind of public information film. . .. If people get their views from Top Gear then there is a more fundamental problem to address than road safety!

Just watched a re-run on 'Dave' - and they've just given the advice on fuel economy: "It's not what you drive, it's the way you drive it."