Here’s a new road safety ad from the State Government of Western Australia. There’s no blood and guts, just a calm, measured and composed message. It’s not quite got the same pull on the heart strings as the Embrace life TVC from the UK, but it follows a similar path.
After you’ve watched it let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
If you believe the shock tactics of many state governments around Australia all it takes to be a safe driver is to make sure you stay under the speed limit. That’s it! An over simplified view, perhaps, but filed in the tell-us-something-we-don’t-know drawer is a new report from AAMI that declares “almost half of all crashes on Australian roads could be averted by drivers simply paying more attention”. Nothing could be more simple than that.
Commenting on the release of the 2008 AAMI Crash Index, Public Affairs Manager Geoff Hughes said, “Absent-mindedness is a factor in 44 per cent of all car collisions, with drivers much more likely to crash due to their own inattention than from speeding, fatigue and alcohol combined.
“While speed, fatigue and alcohol are factors in 37 per cent of car crashes, AAMI’s research shows inattention is the number one reason drivers crash into another vehicle or stationary object.”
Given the fact there is so much shock advertising in our daily media it is astounding to see that 34% of those surveyed knowingly exceeded .05 yet still chose to drive. A bit hard to pay attention if you’re pissed. Again, in keeping with the theme of inattention AAMI’s research showed that 20% of crashes happened due to a failure of a motorist to give way.
AAMI’s media release is shown below and the AAMI Crash Index can be downloaded from their website, or here on AUSmotive (700kb PDF).
If you have, then you’ll be interested in a current and upcoming stories on independent Australian website CarAdvice. They recently witnessed a live crash test at the RTA’s Australian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP). The program responsible for crash testing cars sold on the Australian market to determine their safety credentials. The CarAdvice team saw a 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer VRX being tested. Here’s a couple of quotes:
“The visual of this impact is alarming, far worse than you can ever imagine.”
“It’s a pity that every driver in Australia can’t witness what we saw today. If they did, you wouldn’t think twice about the need to purchase a car with curtain airbags.”
They also took part in some controlled testing on cars fitted with and without Electronic Stability Control (ESC). For those of you thinking of buying a car that offers this as an option, please, just get it. It may sound overly dramatic, but it could save your life. To the car manufacturers who offer such systems as an option only, lift your game and make these systems standard equipment across your model range.
Read the full CarAdvice article HERE.