Will the Australian campaign work?

Jun 26, 2007 18:11 GMT  ·  By

We all understood that men with minute penises employ huge cars to compensate for their lack. But now "Young men who speed do so because they have a small penis" is the slogan of a new road safety campaign triggered by Road and Traffic Authority in Australia.

The $1.9 million campaign is targeting speeding among 17- to 25-year-olds and it encourages people who see speeding male drivers to wiggle their pinkie fingers. This hand gesture means a small penis in youth culture, but even elderly women employ it.

"The campaign aimed to make speeding socially unacceptable. To me [the gesture] says 'speeding - no one thinks big of you'. It will cause people who are speeders to think twice about the image they are creating." said John Whelan, the RTA's director of business co-ordination, road safety and policy.

"The ads would be controversial, but traditional "shock horror advertising" that highlighted injury and death from speeding was no longer effective on people exposed to computer games, modern media ? and horror films. We will do what we feel we have to to get the message through," said Whelan.

The Opposition spokesman on road safety, Andrew Fraser, fears that a safety campaign attending just image would not be effective and he insists on driving education to be implemented in schools. "Just having a campaign that says that a bloke's manhood is smaller than what he thinks it is might be funny, but in a proper education campaign you need to cover all aspects of the dangers of driving a vehicle."

"Addressing the image of speeding among young drivers is clever and commendable. But I'd rather see money go into targeting offenders by using new enforcement technologies, rather than making the community pay for these campaigns." said Harold Scruby, the chairman of the Pedestrian Council of Australia.

The campaign is aired on radios, it's also on TV and cinema, posters in bus shelters, and a 15-second "viral" internet ad that gives "speedsters" an "xtra xtra small" condom.