I think is is pretty good. It re-enforces the message to all road users. The down side is it might deter others from being cyclists and show drivers that cyclists don’t really belong out there in the danger zone.
I think this is great. I had no idea what it was about until the end. Can we play this on TV stations here. The best protection a bicyclist has is ‘our’ attention. It is talking about bike safety from the perspective of a motorist. Precisely what needs to be added to the discussion. When people think ‘bike safety’, they picture bike helmets and turn signals for cyclists. Bike safety should mean all that *AND* educating people who drive autos to be aware of us and know their responsibility when it comes to sharing the road with us in traffic.
But I am probably preaching to the choir here, so I will stop.
I agree with you about driver awareness Buttercup. However, I have mixed feelings about the ad. It seems that it could be interpreted the wrong way by people who think like that motorist from Vail a few posts back. Though bringing attention to driver awareness is important, I’m not sure the scare tactic is the right approach to achieving that end. I think Bike Snob NYC has the right idea about the ad:
“Honestly, it was nearly enough to put me off my bowl of camembert and milk. I realize that the point of this campaign is to be thought-provoking and to shock motorists into realizing how vulnerable the cyclist is. However, I can’t help thinking that something like this is liable to backfire. If anything, it seems like the message is that cycling is really dangerous and that you should drive a car instead. Actually, as I watched I just assumed that AAA was behind it.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by this campaign, though. When it comes to PSAs, the graphic scare tactic is in vogue. In addition to the cyclist-on-the-gurney one, the local news station also regularly shows anti-smoking ads produced by the Department of Health. These generally involve images of doctors squeezing ricotta-like tar from the aortas of dead smokers, or of carcinomas, or my personal favorite, the one of the woman who lost most of her fingers to cigarettes. (I’m not sure how it happened, but perhaps she kept trying to smoke her fingertips.)
However, while I find all of these ads repulsive, I can at least understand the smoking ones. They’re simply trying to scare you into not smoking. In the bike ad though, they’re trying to scare you into not running over cyclists, which seems sort of indirect. Despite circumstantial evidence to the contrary, I’d wager that most drivers already don’t want to run over cyclists. And on top of that, these ads also make the simple act of cycling seem excessively dangerous. It’s like “Clockwork Orange” where they try to cure Alex of his violence and the accidentally make him hate Beethoven too.”
I’m with you. If gruesome images of people who smoke are so successful at keeping people from smoking, why aren’t gruesome images of people injured in bike accidents going to be equally successful at keeping people from riding bicycles?
It seems a better ad would be one that shows (gruesomely) a 23-year old motorist sitting in a prison cell as the years tick by, waiting for his 10 year sentence to finish after hitting a cyclist.
I think the people who made the ad got their wires crossed.
This totally made me cry. (Well, a lot of things do; that’s the PTSD after my 2007 crash). I understood what was going on after the second image, eyes = navigation system. I watched the rest of the video wondering what body parts = car parts they would come up with next.
Unfortunately, I have to agree that it will backfire. Serious cyclists, who ride in spite of the potential crashes, will get it. Drivers who know people who have been hit might get it. But, I have talked to plenty of people who said they will never ride, knowing people like me who survived crashes.
I think the video of a guy in a jail cell would not work, because there is too little connection between the crash and the punshment. Also, because so few drivers are actually sent to jail, but casual watchers won’t know that. (There is a campaign in Chicago now, “Buy a gun for someone who can’t, buy yourself 10 years in jail” with a shot of a guy being led off in handcuffs. I believe the potential audience is laughing and thinking, “Who’s gonna know? How are they going to find me?”)
Perhaps a more effective one would be the human/automobile comparisons, then fast speed reverse film (whatever that’s called) to show how the crash happened, like someone chatting on a cell phone.
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About Me
I am an attorney who represents bicyclists who have been injured in
accidents, cited with traffic infractions or criminal charges, or assaulted by
motorists. Contact me at (520) 622-3333 or at ryberg@seanet.com. My physical
address is 312 South Convent Avenue Tucson, AZ 85701. Consultations are always
free. Please do not hesitate to contact me. --Erik Ryberg
June 24th, 2009 at 10:37 am
I think is is pretty good. It re-enforces the message to all road users. The down side is it might deter others from being cyclists and show drivers that cyclists don’t really belong out there in the danger zone.
June 24th, 2009 at 10:40 am
I think this is great. I had no idea what it was about until the end. Can we play this on TV stations here. The best protection a bicyclist has is ‘our’ attention. It is talking about bike safety from the perspective of a motorist. Precisely what needs to be added to the discussion. When people think ‘bike safety’, they picture bike helmets and turn signals for cyclists. Bike safety should mean all that *AND* educating people who drive autos to be aware of us and know their responsibility when it comes to sharing the road with us in traffic.
But I am probably preaching to the choir here, so I will stop.
June 24th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
I agree with you about driver awareness Buttercup. However, I have mixed feelings about the ad. It seems that it could be interpreted the wrong way by people who think like that motorist from Vail a few posts back. Though bringing attention to driver awareness is important, I’m not sure the scare tactic is the right approach to achieving that end. I think Bike Snob NYC has the right idea about the ad:
“Honestly, it was nearly enough to put me off my bowl of camembert and milk. I realize that the point of this campaign is to be thought-provoking and to shock motorists into realizing how vulnerable the cyclist is. However, I can’t help thinking that something like this is liable to backfire. If anything, it seems like the message is that cycling is really dangerous and that you should drive a car instead. Actually, as I watched I just assumed that AAA was behind it.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by this campaign, though. When it comes to PSAs, the graphic scare tactic is in vogue. In addition to the cyclist-on-the-gurney one, the local news station also regularly shows anti-smoking ads produced by the Department of Health. These generally involve images of doctors squeezing ricotta-like tar from the aortas of dead smokers, or of carcinomas, or my personal favorite, the one of the woman who lost most of her fingers to cigarettes. (I’m not sure how it happened, but perhaps she kept trying to smoke her fingertips.)
However, while I find all of these ads repulsive, I can at least understand the smoking ones. They’re simply trying to scare you into not smoking. In the bike ad though, they’re trying to scare you into not running over cyclists, which seems sort of indirect. Despite circumstantial evidence to the contrary, I’d wager that most drivers already don’t want to run over cyclists. And on top of that, these ads also make the simple act of cycling seem excessively dangerous. It’s like “Clockwork Orange” where they try to cure Alex of his violence and the accidentally make him hate Beethoven too.”
June 24th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Hi Lauren,
I’m with you. If gruesome images of people who smoke are so successful at keeping people from smoking, why aren’t gruesome images of people injured in bike accidents going to be equally successful at keeping people from riding bicycles?
It seems a better ad would be one that shows (gruesomely) a 23-year old motorist sitting in a prison cell as the years tick by, waiting for his 10 year sentence to finish after hitting a cyclist.
I think the people who made the ad got their wires crossed.
–Erik
July 5th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
This totally made me cry. (Well, a lot of things do; that’s the PTSD after my 2007 crash). I understood what was going on after the second image, eyes = navigation system. I watched the rest of the video wondering what body parts = car parts they would come up with next.
Unfortunately, I have to agree that it will backfire. Serious cyclists, who ride in spite of the potential crashes, will get it. Drivers who know people who have been hit might get it. But, I have talked to plenty of people who said they will never ride, knowing people like me who survived crashes.
I think the video of a guy in a jail cell would not work, because there is too little connection between the crash and the punshment. Also, because so few drivers are actually sent to jail, but casual watchers won’t know that. (There is a campaign in Chicago now, “Buy a gun for someone who can’t, buy yourself 10 years in jail” with a shot of a guy being led off in handcuffs. I believe the potential audience is laughing and thinking, “Who’s gonna know? How are they going to find me?”)
Perhaps a more effective one would be the human/automobile comparisons, then fast speed reverse film (whatever that’s called) to show how the crash happened, like someone chatting on a cell phone.