Public Service Announcements were as part of my youth as were the cartoons I watched. There were times when I looked forward to some of them because they even used the Looney Tunes’ characters for being safe around the home where electrical cords became snake like or a saucepan was just waiting for a kid to pour boiling hot water upon themselves with malicious delight. I can’t forget to mention the drug PSAs because they became an iconic part of 80s culture, “this is your brain on drugs” and “I learned it by watching you!” The ones I really want to discuss are of the short film variety. These are as close to the British Public Information Films of the 70s as they’ll get and they deal with bus safety.
Throughout elementary school I didn’t have to worry about riding the bus too often since I was walker. My school was a mere quarter mile at most from my house so I would walk to and from school on most days. The only time I would be using a bus back then was for field trips and day camp in the summer. I never gave much thought to safety on the bus except for the time my sister rented the 2nd Nightmare on Elmstreet movie and the scene where Freddy’s arm comes out of the seat. I hoped I would never be on a bus again. There might have been an incident that prompted the school district to have some films shown in class. The only one that stuck with me was a segment where a kid shows a mouse to the bus driver and she passes out and the bus careens into a body of water. For some reason I remembered it as a beach but the front end of the bus was in mud.
Going through a portion of the videos on YouTube depict some of the kids as rowdy hooligans and I remember there being days where there was no control on the bus more so during the ride the home. For most of high school me taking the bus home was uncommon since I did track my mom would pick me up after practice but when my running days were over I’d take the bus. There were guys that smoked in the back section of the bus and hack up phlegm too. Luckily I was never involved in a bus accident while I was attending school or day camp but chances are I’ll be in one thanks to the irresponsible TOR drivers.
