Top Gear off air: how safe are UK film sets?

"Top Gear" will stop for the "foreseeable future", the BBC has announced. 

Production of the TV show was paused after presenter Freddie Flintoff was involved in a "horrendous" car crash that "almost claimed his life" while filming at the Dunsfold Park aerodrome in Surrey last December, said Metro. 

BBC Studios said that while an independent health and safety review of the show confirmed that production complied with industry best practice, "there were important learnings" to be taken forward following the near-fatal incident. 

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The crash is one of "a series of high-profile accidents" that has brought greater attention to the "hazards" presenters, actors and crew members face while filming, said the BBC's entertainment reporter Sophie van Brugen.  

'Things simply haven't changed'  

Hollywood actor Rory Kinnear's father, Roy Kinnear, died after being thrown from a horse in 1988 during production of "The Return of the Musketeers". He told van Brugen: "Thirty years later, things simply haven't changed." 

Cameraman Mark Milsome was killed while filming a stunt sequence involving a Land Rover on the set of "Black Earth Rising" in Accra, Ghana in 2021. The fatal accident was "easily avoidable and just shouldn't have happened", said Kinnear. "Fundamentally, I don't think anyone has ever gone to the cinema and seen a shot and thought, that's worth dying for."

The cameraman's wife, Andra Milsome, has campaigned for greater safety on set ever since. But she says that despite the coroner asking for further evidence of safety protocols  contacting organisations about the stunt safety and coordination, "ultimately nothing came of it" and "nothing has changed". 

In a survey of 733 film and TV crew conducted by the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union (Bectu) and the Mark Milsome Foundation (MMF), almost three-quarters of film and TV crew said they "felt their safety or that of a colleague has been compromised at work". There was an "overwhelming consensus" that safety protocols and training needed improvement. 

An unnamed industry worker told the BBC they had been on a number of shoots where risk assessments weren't completed until filming had wrapped. "Time pressure schedules always override health and safety." 

'Time is now' 

Former "Top Gear" presenter James May told the BBC's Today programme that he believes the show "does need a bit of a rethink. It's time for a new approach".  

And pauses in production across the film and television industries during the pandemic and the recent Hollywood actors and writers strikes have "given people the chance to reassess", said van Brugen, with many believing the time for change  "is now". 

"Many crews have never had even the most basic training or advice on safe working," said Bectu national secretary Spencer MacDonald. He also highlighted the "dangerous long-hours culture" of working days frequently lasting more than 12 hours, on top of the expectation to "drive long commuting journeys" to and from production sites. 

A proposed "solution" championed by the MMF and Bectu is the introduction of a "health and safety 'passport' for workers", said the BBC. They are calling for the film industry to commit to ensuring everyone working on a production has a Level 2 Production Safety Passport, and that those in supervisory positions are required to have a Level 3.5 Passport. 

Christopher Ross, president of the British Society of Cinematographers, said: "All of the corporate bodies and all of the government bodies need to act in order to make this change. And if that requires a high level change of law – if that's what it takes – that's what it takes."