www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19569900/site/newsweek
Hitting Below the Belt To discourage speeders, Australian authorities have chosen a novel approach: challenge their manhood. Web Exclusive By By Kendall Hill Newsweek July 3, 2007 - When you first read the slogan, SPEEDING: NO ONE THINKS BIG OF YOU, you might think it was a reminder that people think poorly of those who break the law. This new road-safety campaign, launched in Australia last week, is aimed a bit more below the belt--by suggesting those men who speed have small penises. In the television and cinema advertisements, young "hoons"--Aussie-speak for speeding or reckless drivers--are mocked by unimpressed women who wave their little fingers at the drivers in a parody of their manhood. The wagging finger is a commonly used insult in Australia, often leveled at drivers of monster SUVs or expensive sports cars to suggest their vehicles are compensating for a deficiency elsewhere. Still, bruising male egos is not often used as a way of preventing road accidents. But in the land Down Under, authorities have decided the most effective way to change men is to challenge their masculinity. Instead of employing the traditional shock tactics that bombard viewers with gruesome images of dead and maimed, authorities are using shame as their latest weapon in the battle against road deaths. The campaign was produced by the Road Transport Authority (RTA) of New South Wales, Australia's most populous state, where death and injury rates from speeding are highest among young men. "More and more young people are not responding to the shock-horror kind of advertising," said RTA Director John Whelan. "We are doing something different to get the message through. What we are saying with these ads is that speeding doesn't impress anybody." While Whelan conceded the campaign message might prove offensive to some viewers, "what's more offensive is the number of people being killed on our roads from speeding." The RTA estimates 1,000 people will die in New South Wales from speeding-related injuries in the next five years. While this was the lowest annual toll since World War II, 40 percent of those fatalities were speeding-related, and 94 deaths involved young, probationary drivers. "That's a tragically disproportionate representation," Whelan said. Between 2002 and 2006, more than a third of those killed in speeding-related crashes were aged 17-25, and 85 percent of those killed were men. A further 4,000 people were injured in speeding-related accidents. The pinkie-wagging campaign theme is the result of a six-month research process involving a test audience of drivers aged 17-50, a third of whom had recent speeding convictions. Researchers discovered that young drivers had become inured to the horrific images often used in road-safety education campaigns. The test group's response to the new ads was "overwhelmingly positive," says Whelan, and the pinkie campaign was the only one that resonated with the majority of those surveyed.
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