Top Gear (1977)

The big holiday rush begins this weekend and many drivers plan to travel through Friday night. How dangerous is this practice? What are the stress factors and what are the signs of fatigue? Angela finds out for herself by night driving to the West Country. Twenty people are killed and over 200 seriously injured each week yet these figures could be cut to one tenth if we used our seat belts. Should we leave it to persuasion or is compulsion the final answer?

The training of a British police driver is said to be the best in the world, but what makes it so good? Angela becomes a pupil of the Police Training Centre at Hendon and discovers rather more than she expected about her own driving standards. The Scottish Six-day Trial: the world's top trials riders spend a week in the mountains around Fort William in fierce and punishing competition.

The MOT test continues to be controversial. Is the interpretation consistent from station to station and does the motorist get a fair deal? Angela makes a comparison between the British system and the way it is done in Belgium, where they have been testing longer than anywhere else in Europe. Motor Caravans: reporter Mike Woodhead and family have their first experience of this fast-expanding do-it-yourself type of holiday.

Tonight Angela Rippon reports from Northern Ireland where to park your car can cost £600, a taxi fare is cheaper than a bus ride and where you are twice as likely to be killed in a road accident as in the rest of the UK. Driven to Drink: how much alcohol can you take and still drive safely? Mike Dornan reports on a special test day at Brands Hatch.

Tonight Angela Rippon climbs into the cab to report on the latest situation about tachographs in lorries. Colin Chapman talks to Barrie Gill about this Series's Formula One motor racing scene.

Angela attends the finals of a nationwide search to find a girl rally driver who can take her place beside international stars Roger Clark and Russell Brookes. Predictably she takes a turn at the rally wheel herself. Rust and corrosion cost the British motorist £200-million a year. But savings could be made. Barrie Gill reports.

Traffic jams make the headlines almost every weekend of the summer. When the cause is an accident the emergency services often have difficulty getting to the scene and the police can do little to ease the congestion. Faced with similar problems seven years ago Belgium solved theirs by using helicopters.

Every year a quarter of a million people go to Le Mans to watch this premier sports car race in the international calendar. This year Top Gear cameras followed the fortunes – and misfortunes – of the Ian Bracey entry, the Ibec-Hesketh 308LM, from the moment when it made its debut at Donington Park and then throughout the 24-hours-race, until the final climax.

Top Gear invited international teams of four-wheel-drive vehicles to decide who is King of the Country. Could cross-country cars from the US, France, Japan or Russia break the time put up by the British Rovers round a specially designed course through the mud of tank terrain in Dorset?

Brum revs up for the Motor Show. The largest Motor Show ever held in Britain opens its doors in five weeks' time at the National Exhibition Centre, near Birmingham. Angela Rippon and Barrie Gill report on the plans, facilities and entertainment in a special preview edition of Top Gear.