The Day Britain Stopped

Like Smallpox 2001 before it, i found out about this on the day it was to be shown by flipping through the paper, and i'm glad i watched it, continuing in the vein of "What might have been" BBC docu-dramas (The war game, Threads, Smallpox 2001, and If... in 2004) it shows an all-too plausible scenario of total meltdown of the transport system. Also quite scary (to me anyway) was the antiquated-looking nature of the air traffic control systems..they said that the controllers had to "Imagine a 3D picture", this isnt the 1970's anymore, we have the technology for the screen to display a 3D picture!. But anyway, if this film is ever repeated i recommend people watch it..even if it is just to call it "scaremongering" as so many anti-science people do

This film is a "realistic" dramatisation of a future documentary about a major day of transportation disasters in Britain. It is based to some extent on fact: massive overcrowding on roads, train strikes on the grounds of "safety" causing danger to the traveling public and a creaky air traffic control infrastructure. Some elements of the scenario have actually "more or less" happened, such as the roads grinding to a halt as a result of strikes, weather and accidents coinciding.

The piece is gripping from start to finish, in the compulsive way watching 24 hour news during a war is gripping. Morbid fascination takes over.

However, the subject matter is hugely complex. Assessing transportation risk and therefore deciding what to do about it, which path of action is the lesser of evils, is beyond the scope of a journalistic drama such as this. You are left worrying that it could all go horribly wrong, yet the more obvious steps the government might take could well be counter-productive.

Conclusions such as "it's the fault of the system, not the individuals within the system" are valid up to a point but unhelpful.

People interested in this subject might gain more from reading books such as Risk by John Adams or the superb paper on how unintended consequences of risk management led to the Valuejet Air Disaster (I don't have the reference to hand but I have the paper somewhere).

Gripping stuff, nonetheless.

Casually going through YouTube and found this and watched and i cannot emphasise enough how utterly convincing this was to watch given the fact im 22 so when this came out i would have only been 6 at the time of broadcast. Looked absolutely real and there were moment i thought oh my god no way did this happen and countless times had shivers going up my spine. The absolutely best piece of acting, directing, research and filming ever done. I have watched 1000's of documentaries, docudramas and docusoaps and this by far out of the 1000's iv watched was the most convincing.

I actually thought this was real till I typed into Google "the day britain stopped" and found out it was an act. Just lost for words how they pulled it off. Im a foolproof man and this is the first time ever iv been fooled by acting etc for how real this was to watch and how actually plausible this situation is and do you know what? This could actually happen given how congested the airspace and roads are these days (as of 28/04/2019) and how common major accidents are and theres no way i doubt these events actually happening.

Work of art and perfection bar none. 10/10 by far. Blown away with speechlessness.

I would definitely recommend this it is so well done that considering that I'm 21 years old I had to check if it had happened or not it's clear alot of research went into making this.