The British have been running an incredibly graphic PSA about the realities of texting and driving. And while excerpts have appeared on CNN and other news outlets. Early reports indicate that the PSA is considered too graphic for primetime American television audiences.
Really? It doesn't play in Peoria? It sure as hell happens there. Can we only show the truth when it is coated in Vaseline?
This is the kind of reality television we need in this country. Watch the video and share it with someone you love who loves to text.
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Rated.
When will we learn that driving a car is not a convenience, it is a responsibility!
- rated & forwarded
TRUTH: we just reported a woman who was tailgating my husband on an interstate to the state because she was driving a state car with the number to call on the back. she was talking on her cell phone with one hand and playing with her hair on the other! she was steering with her knees.
SHOULD TEXTING WHILE DRIVING BE ILLEGAL?
WTF?
rated
Last fall my wife and I took a trip to Virginia Beach. On the drive home on interstate 64 in West Virginia, we were passed by a young woman traveling well over the 70 m.p.h. speed limit who was on her cell phone. The roads were wet and we were in the mountains. Less than five minutes later as we rounded a turn there was the young woman's car crushed against a rock outcropping it was upside down and she was in a heap against the window.
What makes people think when they drive that it's a natural for for them to divert their attention from watching and thinking and making snap decisions to do these self absorbed tasks?
chatting isn't important. checking your email isn't important. neither is watching movies while you drive.
what's happened to us? is it me growing old or have we really evolved into such a collective idiocy that we allow for this moronic, homicidal and suicidal behavior? and do relatively NOTHING about it. I mean this didn't start last week....
which leads me to this: where are all the traffic cops?
Virginia Tech's Transportation Institute recently released a study that indicates that texting while driving increases, by a factor of 23, your chances of being involved with an accident - as opposed to only a 6 time greater chance when you're making a phone call.
The American Automobile Association reports that car and traffic accidents are the leading cause of death of 15 to 20 year olds, and that nearly half — 46 percent — of teens text message while driving, and 51 percent talk on cell phones while driving.
Seriously? What's the point of arguing with stats like that, eh?
I wish they'd invent a simulator that gives teenagers who are learning to drive the sensation of being in a car accident. I think that once you've experienced that terrifying out of control feeling, even if you walk away, it really changes you.
This should be played nightly on whatever channel would guarantee the most exposure. Especially to the kids. My kid already knows better but he just got his first car Sunday (which you would know Iamsurly if you ever visited my blog!). He will be seeing THIS vid though just in case so THANKS.
I knew that fit the badly skewed picture when I heard Hoda Cotb on the Today Show gloss over the PSA to talk about the women who got revenge at a man, "...they glued his "hoo-ha" to his stomach..." If an international reporter has become so dumbed down she can't say the word 'penis,' we're doomed.
They show videos of horrible things at mandatory classes after a DUI conviction to keep folks from drinking and driving .... the next time... Why shouldn't this be mandatory when a teenager gets a license?
Second, I can say that these kinds of ads, as shocking as they are, are not very efficient to get the message out. The SAAQ, the public insurance for motor vehicles in Quebec, produced several over the last 20 years or so. Many studies using focus groups and other psychological testing methods have examined these ads and reported that when they are very graphic or brutal, viewers just tune out (I will see if I can dig them out in English). They do not believe the events will happen to them because they are so extreme. As far as I know, no studies have shown that a reduction in crashes has been observed after these ads were shown. Sorry for spoiling the party…
I agree that it's a serious problem and it needs to be addressed, but I don't have a cell phone so I'm not the audience that needs this haunting reminder. Rated and appreciated.
Media campaigns can be efficient to change driver behavior, but they frequently need to be combined with enforcement and sometimes other kinds of educational methods. A good example is the click it or ticket campaign to improve seat belt use by drivers and passengers. This annual media/enforcement blitz has been found to be relative effective.
I took the following quote from one of the papers published by Dr. Guy Paquette from Laval University:
L’utilisation de la peur – qui vise souvent à augmenter le niveau de risque perçu de certains comportements – est cependant délicate puisqu’un niveau d’anxiété trop élevé déclenche divers mécanismes de défense tels le décrochage (l’individu cesse de s’exposer au message) ou la contre-argumentation (la personne s’attaque à la crédibilité du message (Assael, 1995).
Basically, he says that playing on the fear of viewers is very tricky, since if the content of the message is too intense, the viewer may become defensive either by not listening to it or attacking its credibility. In sum, the viewer may not believe in the message of the advertisement if it is too extreme.
This may not mean that it is the case with the message above. One would have to evaluate its effectiveness.
Overall, this a complex issue to analyze, since the message need to play on human emotions, such guilt (killing your friend in a car crash), ego (you being killed or injured) or alter (killing strangers in the car crash). This is what the researchers above are trying to evaluate: which emotions work better.
My apologies for the strong technical content... ;-)
Thank you for the background- definitely some interesting points!
And with texting and driving, the graphic images are not going to play upon any response mechanism for a typical teen - most of whom may be inured to that sort of image through TV and video games. More importantly, the unreality is something to rebel against.
I'm not saying teens will deliberately flout the law to rebel against the ad. Just that the ad is likely to be something discussed as "targeted" at them, and therefore worthy of ridicule.
Best solution? Way more stringent requirements to get and keep a license. It's absurd how easy it is to get on in the US.
And believe me, having been rear-ended in a Honda Civic by a guy in a truck with a trailer full of sheetrock who was talking/texting and failed to notice my turn signal - I'm in favor of a ban.