Complaint
This edition featured a sequence in which the presenter encouraged callers to honk their car horns to see if there was a response from other drivers. A listener complained this was irresponsible and in breach of the Highway Code. The ECU assessed whether the broadcast met the BBC’s standards, as set out in the Editorial Guidelines and elsewhere.
Outcome
There is no specific provision within the Guidelines for this kind of incident. The ECU therefore considered the complaint against the wider obligation of the BBC to stay within established rules and the law unless there are good editorial reasons not to do so. In the sequence concerned, Scott Mills talked to a member of the Radio 2 Breakfast show team and then to a listener. Both were driving, separately, to the Glastonbury Festival. He suggested they honk their car horns to see how many other drivers nearby were Radio 2 listeners, which they did. The injunction to blow the horn was limited to those particular drivers and the cars immediately around them. Use of a car horn is only permissible under very limited circumstances and in the ECU’s view the programme encouraged a potential breach of the Highway Code unjustified by the Show’s editorial content
Upheld
Further action
The finding was reported to the management of BBC Radio, who have drawn the provisions of the Highway Code to the programme team’s attention