Anti Speeding Ads Question Manhood

Australia is seeking to reduce road deaths by questioning the manhood of speeding drivers in a new shock advertising campaign. Entitled "Speeding. No-one Thinks Big of You" campaign will run on TV, in cinemas, at bus shelters and online.

The adverts shows women shaking their little finger - a gesture used to symbolise a small penis - as speeding male motorists race past. The $A1.9m (£805,400, US$1.6m) campaign aims to make speeding socially unacceptable among young drivers.

The shock tactics of previous adverts that showed disturbing images of death and injury in road crashes have not worked, says the New South Wales state government authority behind the ads, the Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA).

Exposure to "computer games, modern media ... and horror films" had desensitised many young males to the violent images of those campaigns, RTA spokesman John Whelan told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.

"We will do what we feel we have to, to get the message through," Mr Whelan said.
Speeding is a factor in about 40% of road deaths in NSW each year, according to RTA figures.

The ad campaign coincides with the introduction of new restrictions on learner drivers, including a ban on all mobile phone use, limits on the number of young passengers allowed and tougher speeding penalties.

However, many will see the adverts as a distraction from the issue itself and in fact quite sexist and insulting in nature. If such an ad was aimed at women and questioned their breasts size for example, how would that be viewed?

What do you think? - view the TV advert here

Source: BBC News Online

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