Good drivers just drive

This is pretty old now (this ad ran in first quarter of 2006), but I just came across it randomly while looking at car videos on Metacafe.

This ad campaign in South Australia urges people on the road to simply concentrate on their driving. The ad attempts to show the potentially devastating effects of not being 100% focused on the road ahead of you.

Through a series of very specific campaigns, South Australia hopes to minimize accidents and death on the road. The official numbers that the government hopes to achieve are no more than 90 fatalities and 1000 injuries by 2010.

You can see some of the details of the Road Safety campaign which include print, radio, television, and internet placements of ads. The South Australian government is essentially saturating the airwaves with this message in hopes that repetition and constant confrontation with the campaign will yield satisfactory results. Early reports from the Motor Accident Commission indicate that the campaign is working well.

From my experience in driving on Australian roads, I can definitely say that road safety announcements are all over the place. When you drive on long stretches of road, there are always signs to remind you which side to drive on, when to take a power nap, where to pull over, and just random other signs which point out the dangers of the road ahead. I don’t drive here enough to actually give my opinion on the drivers, but I do get the sense that it’s all a bit in-your-face at the end of the day. But hey, whatever works to get the message across I guess.