New road safety adverts said to be 'harrowing'

Two new road safety advertisement films, which graphically depict the killing of pedestrians, are to be launched in Belfast this morning.

The advertisements which, according to the sponsor, AXA Insurance, "are possibly the most shocking so far", are part of a series which have already depicted harrowing scenes of the consequences of drink-driving, the need to wear seat belts and the need to reduce speed.

They are promoted jointly by the National Safety Council in the Republic and the Department of Environment in Northern Ireland.

The first features a teenage boy, one of a group of boys and girls walking from their school, who are sending flirtatious text messages.

Concentrating on the phone the teenager walks into the street and is hit from behind by a van, shattering its windscreen and sending the boy into the air, before he smacks off the road, blood pouring from his nose and mouth.

The next scene is the boy's friends walking at his funeral.

The second advertisement depicts a smiling mother collecting her smiling toddler from school. As they prepare to cross the road a young man approaches in a car.

He is distracted by a pretty girl as he turns the car into the school road and slams into both mother and son.

The next scene is the battered mother, crying as she looks through an operating theatre window as surgeons fail to resuscitate her son.

The National Safety Council readily admits the advertisements are "harrowing", but says they realistically depict the consequences of individual behaviour.

A spokesman for the council said the advertisements had all been "pre-screened" to members of the National Parents' Council and the support groups Headway and Spinal Injuries Association which had lent their support to the campaign.

The cost of the latest advertisements including the cost of broadcast time is about €700,000, according to an AXA spokesman, who put the insurance company's spend on the campaign at between €2 million and €3 million.

Somewhat similar but less graphic road safety advertisements had previously been screened on Ulster Television in the 1970s, featuring crash scenes where a woman would walk into view commenting: "I'm a nurse and it makes me sick."

At about the same time, RTÉ was screening road-accident scenes with the voiceover: "Accidents don't just happen: they are caused".

The three currently being broadcast in Ireland are Thump, with a voiceover saying: "Slow down, boys", a depiction of the dangers of speed; Shame, in which a young man rolls a car over a hedge and kills a small boy; and Damage, in which the voiceover remarks that a young man is going to hit his girlfriend so hard she gets brain damage, a warning about the use of seat belts.

International experience has shown that graphic advertising is effective when part of an integrated road safety campaign.

The current advertisements funded by industry were scheduled as part of the Government's current Road Safety Strategy.