It is a graphic ad but really nothing much worse than the consequences of drunk driving videos they show to seniors before the prom.
My issue with it is that it is overplayed. The accident and damage caused was enough to get the message across. The little kid asking why mom and dad aren't responding and running around showing all the victims drags the ad out and makes the situation seem more unlikely.
The target audience is teens and young adults, and the moment you play something beyond the point of being believable is the same moment they stop paying attention and discard all previous information. The maturity/invincibility levels of the 15-25 crowd are low/high. Beyond that age range things even out and eventually people grow up and take into account that they can get hurt and killed by doing something stupid.
At 15-25 a bad accident is a bumping into someone and crunching fenders. "It won't happen to me." is a mantra repeated often. It takes a major accident that threatens or takes the life of someone close to get a lot of people to lose that mantra. Videos and shock images of other accidents and dramatizations only encourage the "It won't happen to me." mindset.
Michigan is adding to the texting while driving laws they have so that you can be pulled over and ticketed if an officer sees you texting behind the wheel. A lot of people are up in arms about it thinking the police will pull you over for simply taking your eyes off the road, but I really can't imagine any officer wasting their time like that. If you are ticketed for texting while driving you get a $100 ticket the first time and $200 for every following ticket. (If you watch Oprah you may have seen the Governor signing the bill into law, effective July 1st.)
If these laws are enforced as they should be then I can see a drop in the numbers of people texting while driving. When they added a fine for not wearing a seat belt, and added belt checking zones, a lot more people started buckling up more or less to avoid the hassle of a $500 ticket. They are safer in case of an accident and law enforcement is happy. I like safe roadways and if requiring people to do something they should be doing anyhow is what it takes then so be it.
Now we need to work on removing TV screens from the dash board, and making the back seat of any child carrying car soundproof.
