Comment by vacri | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vacri | Hacker News Reader

In my home state of Victoria (Australia) we have gone from 1001 road fatalities in 1970 to just over 300 per year, with a doubling of the state's population to around 4-4.5 million.

I knew someone involved in a sizable study looking at what factors had the biggest effects over time. There were plenty of small factors around certain safety requirements/developments or traffic control, but there were only two big factors: mandatory seat belts and extremely graphic advertisments, aka the TAC ads.

The TAC ads basically showed you what accidents look like in real life, and what you look like after an accident. None of this soft touch crap - the state next door ran an anti-speeding campaign where they had people extending their little finger at speeding drivers (as in 'little dick syndrome'). Absolutely laughable and the folks who are the bulk of the problem - young men - ignore crap like that.

But when you see an advert that has someone's head going through a windshield in slo-mo, or a motorcycle rider coming off his bike crotch-first into an oncoming van, or a hospital scene with a bloke in traction, it helps dissolve the 'it won't happen to me' mindset. Not altogether, but it's no longer conveniently put out of mind.

I'm at work so I can't find some youtubes to demonstrate, but the ads are usually surprisingly 'real'. Needless to say, the ads are usually quite shocking to people exposed to them for the first time.

None of this soft touch crap - the state next door ran an anti-speeding campaign where they had people extending their little finger at speeding drivers (as in 'little dick syndrome'). Absolutely laughable and the folks who are the bulk of the problem - young men - ignore crap like that.

New South Wales (the state next door) has seen a similar reduction in deaths. In about 1970, the death toll was around 1300 per year. It is now down to 367 in the last year, and has been averaging about 400 the last few years. NSW has a population about 30% larger than Victoria.

The ads seen here (NSW) are mostly in in the same graphic vein as those seen in Victoria. Indeed many of them are the same advertisements.

The 'pinky' ad was actually an attempt to reach the young men whom you say would ignore it. It was though that they were actually ignoring the more graphic ads, still thinking that it won't happen to them.

I didn't realise the TAC ads had come through to you blokes - the times I've visited I've only seen ads like the pinky ones. I stand corrected. The pinky ads are still stupid, though - as if the problematic young blokes are going to respond to that :)

Another large change I saw in Victoria over those 40 years was a massive change in the public attitude towards the acceptability of drink driving.

They still have some way to go, I think, to catch up with places like Europe where people are shocked if you consider driving after 2 beers.

Victoria seems to have taken all the low-hanging fruit from the road toll, and will have to work hard to get further gains. Many of those remaining 300 deaths are suicides or pedestrians who "made no attempt to avoid the vehicle" which I think means they were drunk and passed out on the road, or something like that.

I didn't read the study I mentioned, just had it related to me by one of the folks involved. You raise a good point, perhaps it may have been hard to determine that very gradual change of opinions of drunk driving as being a large factor - certainly seat belts and the introduction of the TAC ads produced significantly improved road toll numbers in a short period of time, hence are more easily noted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2mf8DtWWd8

Thanks, I didn't realise they had a montage... gets a bit hectic there in the middle.

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