Road Safety

Road safety ads are all the rage at the moment, presumably because people continue to die all over the roads. To be fair, people will always die all over the roads, so it are obviously the needless deaths that these ads are trying to prevent. I’ve seen three that have made me think, and I’m sharing them here.

There are a couple of approaches. And happy happy joy hoy, the first is the horrifically graphic approach, deminstrated here in the Western Cape’s First Kiss video:
In case you didn’t catch the warning just there, it’s rather graphic.

Erg. But you know, wear your seatbelt and that won’t happen. And apparently, it works:

The “First Kiss” commercial is adapted from the “Damage” advertisement produced by the Northern Ireland Department of the Environment. This advertisement was credited by the Irish Road Safety Authority as having brought about a 100% increase in backseat seatbelt wearing and 50% increase in front seat wearing rates in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Sadly, one of the highest risk groups – ‘the yoof’ – tend tune out serious messages. So then you need to try a different tack: humour. Here’s a New Zealand don’t text and drive ad:

Because no, as this final print (and my favourite) ad proves, when you’re texting while driving, you’re really not concentrating on the things that you should be:

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Very clever, Land Rover.

Of course, in SA, all this falls against a backdrop of very limited adherence to the law and very limited enforcement of those laws. But still, anything is better than nothing, right?

Possibly, anyway.