23 Dec 2011

Is this the most brutal road safety film ever?

Road safety is a serious topic and we’re subjected to a new affront on the conscience as a valuable form of mental warfare every Christmas.

Their aim is to stop you being an idiot and getting behind the wheel this Christmas when drink driving cases tend to rocket – in 2010 250 people were killed in incidents involving drivers over the limit in the UK alone.

Road safety adverts can be hit and miss but they tend to follow the same trends.

There’s often a gentle approach that reminds you what you could lose if you’re caught drink driving and the personal consequences. This tact was most famously portrayed by the multi-personality barman who acts as looking glass into the future and how your life could potentially be destroyed.

There’s also a tendency for that looking glass to be flipped outwards and onto the other people you could harm by drink driving, something that was chillingly revealed in a powerful UK advert where the protagonist is haunted by the image of a child they’ve killed.

Then there’s the one which shows exactly what can happen if you drink drive, lose control of your vehicle and become involved in a road traffic accident – the gruesome, unapologetic one.

It’s the latter which tends to be the most horrific and the one that sits longer in the mind - so imagine the impact of an advert that marries all three themes into one five minute film.

That’s exactly what the Transport Accident Commission (TAC) has done in Australia.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of its first ever road safety video, TAC compiled a retrospective montage of its road safety campaigns into one brutal film.

It was first aired in December 1989 but two years on, it’s as powerful as ever and genuinely difficult to watch in its entirety.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2mf8DtWWd8&feature=player_embedded