The recent road safety campaign by National Highways takes a gentle approach – but do the brutal approaches of the past work better?
A few weeks back, National Highways launched a road safety campaign that it called, ‘Little changes, change everything’. It targets two driving issues: middle-lane hogging and tailgating.
Take a look at one of their videos:
What struck us is that National Highways has gone for an upbeat, positive vibe with no scary or distressing imagery in sight. It couldn’t be more different from some of the messaging we’ve seen in the past.
Years of shock tactics
In the examples below, we’ve linked to the clips, but there’s no way we’re embedding them – some of it is harrowing stuff, so be warned if you click through.
There’s been a long tradition of using graphic imagery in road safety campaigns. For decades, campaign makers have used all the techniques of horror film-makers, including jump-scares, tight framing and plenty of gore.
For example, when road safety campaigns were targeting seatbelt compliance in the seventies, viewers were assailed with footage of a driver crashing through his window, with apparent fatal consequences:
70s Road Safety Video – Content Warning
Fast forward thirty years or so, and a new generation of campaigners were tackling the same behaviour, but upping the ante considerably In this grisly example, an unbelted teenager in the back seat collides with his mum, killing her. Somehow, the matter-of-fact voice-over makes it even worse. Once again – be warned:
Seatbelt road safety advert – Content Warning
There’s no shortage of examples like these. In fact, we bet that millions of us have at least one ghastly road safety video imprinted forever on our brains. And if we remember them, then that means that the campaign has worked… hasn’t it?
Shocking, but not necessarily effective.
One of the comments on the last YouTube clip sums up how many of us think about road safety shock tactics:
I realize that this is traumatizing to some, but I wish we had more safety advertisements like these since they’re so effective
That sounds reasonable, but is it true? To answer that, we need to look at the research – and as luck would have it, the Canadian organisation TIRF (Traffic Injury Research Foundation) has published a great little factsheet on just this topic.
Based on a huge European study looking at thirty years of data, TIRF concludes that road safety campaigns generally:
• reduced the number of road incidents by approximately 9%;
• increased seatbelt use by 25%;
• reduced speeding by 16%;
• increased yielding behaviour by 37%; and,
• increased risk comprehension by about 16% (Phillips et al. 2009).
So, broadly speaking, road safety campaigns do work. But when it comes to campaigns using graphic or shocking images, things get more complicated:
These campaigns are not equally effective with all audiences; younger and male audiences are more difficult to influence using this approach, and the effects of fear-based appeals are often short-lived (SWOV 2009).
It seems that the same adverts that reduce many of us to jelly barely raise an eyebrow for young male audiences. And of course, the huge problem is that young male drivers are far more likely to be involved in serious accidents. As TIRF makes clear, it’s the very people the ads try to target that are most resistant to their influence:
More concerning is that research shows that individuals that are most likely to engage in the behaviour, and are most invested in it, are most likely to ignore or reject the message if it is not well-constructed.
A better way forward?
Did you spot that little caveat at the end of the quote? TIRF’s research summary suggests that some ‘fear-based’ ads can work well. As an example, they cite one created for Sussex Safer Roads. We’re going to embed this one, because it’s emotive but not graphic:
And that’s the point. In a world desensitised to carnage by shoot-em-ups and four million episodes of The Walking Dead, it’s the positive messages that stand more chance of cutting through. On that basis, maybe the National Highways campaign has got something going for it.
At any rate, buckle up and be safe out there. We’ll be back next time with something less sobering!
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