Firemen slide down poles as if responding to an emergency–albeit slowly–yet there’s no emergency in sight or sense of urgency felt.
An emergency medical technician (EMT)/rescue worker type pushes an empty gurney through corridors and eventually onto an ambulance.
Firefighters gear up their truck which then makes its way out of the station.
Police cars, a fire truck and emergency vehicles converge on a stretch of highway which the officers have cordoned off. Yet there’s no sign of any trouble..
Traffic comes to a standstill, unable to pass the police blockade. People get out of their cars, knowing they’re in for a long wait. What they’re waiting for, though, remains unclear. Traffic is backed up for as far as the eye can see.
Investigators walk about, looking over the scene.
Meanwhile, we finally get a glimpse of who and what they’re waiting for: a motorcyclist beginning his commute. He’s driving recklessly and at high speed, weaving in and out of traffic.
Clearly he’s a skilled driver but he’s also a daredevil, zipping along thoroughfares while encountering some close calls with bigger vehicles.
Back to where the police, EMTs and firemen wait, we now see a nearby highway overpass. There a couple of youngsters watch and wait. One of them has his cell phone camera at the ready.
Then the inevitable happens. The motorcyclist loses control of the bike and they both flip over the center divider. They land heavily on the pavement, right in the center of the cordoned off highway. The driver bounces several times against the road as his body slides along before coming to a literally dead halt.
A firefighter sprays fire extinguisher foam over the motorbike wreckage.
An EMT-type or paramedic places a sheet over the deceased driver.
A super then appears: “You’re an accident waiting to happen.”
The lad on the overpass clicks off cell phone camera photographs of the accident scene below and then leaves.
Another super follows, which relates a sobering statistic: “British troops are twice as likely to die on the road as civvies.”
A British Army logo then comes up on screen accompanied by some prudent advice: “Drive Carefully. You’re Tough. But Not Invincible.”
Road safety films
The British Army commissioned this 70-second road-safety film titled Waiting to Happen. It’s one of two in a campaign for internal military use that was directed by Seb Edwards of Academy Films, London, for London agency Golley Slater. The other :70, titled Debris, shows a deadly traffic collision with the impact being felt in different places–by the dead driver’s loved ones, friends and family who are barraged in their homes and elsewhere by shattered glass and other debris.
A parting supered message to the reckless driver reads, “It’s not just you who will feel the impact.”
The ensemble at Golley Slater included creatives David Abbott and Paul Williams, and producer Sinead Phillips.
Simon Cooper produced the films for Academy. The DP was Martin Ruhe.
Editor was Sam Rice Edwards of Nick Hindson Editors, London. Flame artist was Ludo Fealy of MPC, London. Colorist was MPC’s Mark Gethin.
Sound designer was Andy Humphreys of 750mph, London.
Jon Hopkins, an independent artisan, served as music composer.
Epidemic Both 70-second films were created in the wake of the staggering number of British troops recently killed on civilian roads after returning home from active military service. It was discovered that having survived war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, many soldiers approach normal life with an air of invincibility, resulting in tragic accidents. Rather than simply barking orders at the soldiers, the army adopted a cinematic approach to tackle the problem.
Waiting to Happen was shot on location in Germany where there are a large number of British barracks. The bleak eastern landscape provided a perfect sense of foreboding for the film. The idea was to create an unsettling surreal atmosphere that slowly intensified, like a bad dream. It was important to avoid the customary ‘road safety’ shock tactics as the target audience would be immune to such a crude approach, given that most of them would have witnessed real life atrocities themselves. Both Waiting to Happen and Debris were developed as part of a more subtle strategy to get under soldiers’ skin and leave an indelible impression that would hopefully result in a positive change in behavior.
