In NSW the RTA has started running this ad on that quaint medium called television, thankfully they’ve done a viral as well. What do you think?
Mark at Stoush worries about the psychological implications.
101 Responses to “PP-Platers”
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Love it!
I love it too. I already have my own similar signal for young men in hotted up noisy cars who speed and otherwise drive dangerously. I shout to get their attention if I can and then indicate with thumb and forefinger the few cms that must be the size of the penis. Been doing it for yonks.
So, who’s going to be the first to complain that this is just another example of how TEH FEMINISM belittles men? Bets taken here.
Great ad. Wonder if it will have any effect?
I’d have thought the universal hand signal for small dickery was the thumb and forefinger one, though, as Reg says.
two (and a bit) things, written with extreme patience as I feel I am wasting my time writing this when I need to finish my dissertation
firstly, maybe if they asked some people who actually do research on young male drivers and car culture, etc they would know that cars within car culture operate as part of a homosocial institution. So the car, instead of a woman (original homosocial relation), as an object is the third term that mediates sociality between men or those who are performing masculinities. Questioning the size of a young male driver’s penis may seem like a tremendously funny neo-freudian way to punish young male drivers by way of inference but it fails to grasp the difference between homosociality and homosexuality. Homosociality may involve homoerotic undercurrents or be part of a homoerotic libidinal economy but this is always mediated by a third term. The simple response will be young men saying that others are fucked and retarded and that they don’t get it. That is, (perhaps like Mark at Stoush) I have a real concern that the ad will actually have the opposite intended effect, mainly because young men have been programmed to be cultural reactionaries. Before it was over nationalism or working-class sporting identities, etc. now it will be over precious car culture. Clearly a woman or non-car person invented this ad for other women and non-car people to have a laugh not to change actual driving practices.
Secondly, and more generally, is the government going to spend money combating the messages of organised motorsport that the ‘hero’ is the one who takes risks and wins in the end? Or the mystified belief that entrepreneurs who have the ‘balls’ to take a ‘punt’ on ‘opportunities’ to exploit (with investors’ money) that are best capitalists? These relations coalesce. What about having the ‘balls’ to ask a pretty girl to dance? Are all masculine relations to contingencies necessarily bad? No. However, the whole relation between risk — or exploiting the contingencies of social life — and expectations of masculine behaviour needs attention particularly if we are trying to move towards ’sustainable’ modes of sociality. I don’t see this ad doing that work.
In fact, it is no better than Howard’s modus operatum to target populations within which a problem exists rather than targeting the problem itself by recognising that probelm exists across a whole range of different populations (alcohol abuse, sexual abuse, etc). If someone wants to argue that ‘hooning’ — as depicted in this ad — is actually a road safety problem, compared to any other problem within road safety then I am ready to point out such stupidity. The governmental statistics do not support such a conclusion, as I have argued in the book chapter on hoons in _Outrageous: Moral Panics in Australia_. Serial drink driving and pedestrian injuries are actually problems. Young men copying the driving style of older men, which is not ‘hooning’, but driving ‘normally’, is more of a problem.
Tackle the actual problem not segment a targeted population for political gain.
(For the theory heads, Foucault called this biopolitics.)
So Glen, what you’re saying is that we shouldn’t say hoons have small dicks?
Right then, obviously time to close the betting.
Obviously a cut too close to the bone………..so to speak.
I have experienced many terrible drivers during my time, but each type have their own particular ways.
Young men do like to hoon and the lack of experience combined with high powered vehicles causes many crashes, and they don’t always harm just themselves. I have had trouble too with younger females who like to tail-gate. They also speed but not the hooning that young men do.
I could go on and name many differing types, but the fact of the matter is that we all think we’re good drivers when we’re not and quite often we dont drive to our level of experience, or competence, and the results of mistakes are life changing. Maybe something like this ad will make young men think twice about being dickheads when they’re behind the wheel.
I think they should legislate that p-platers can only drive vehicles with a limited power-to-weight ratios. This I believe would have a significant impacy upon young male deaths on our roads.
wtf, i just read the RTA site and realised that the ad is meant to combat ‘youth speeding’. ffs, doing 200 km/h on the spot while doing a burnout is not speeding. A road traffic engineer was quoted in the mid-1990s staysafe report for the sunset clause of the NSW anti-hoon legislation as saying that hooning, ie doing burnouts, etc is not a safety issue, and is more of an annoyance issue.
Where is the ad showing some non-p-plate dickhead in a porsche, Monaro, WRX, or turbo saab weaving in and out of traffic that i seemed to come across everytime i drive down parramatta road? and which the p-platers then emulate while driving??
err, phil, you can say what you want, maybe you feel a need to talk about the size of hoons’ penises? However, if you want to decrease the rate of road accidents involving p-platers then I suggest this ad will not help. Hooning is not actually a road safety problem, and beyond comments by experts, I can demonstrate this by way of QLD’s police road safety statistics where hooning was found to be the cause of less than half a percent of accidents. Hooning as a road safety probelm is a cultural myth. Driving like a dickhead in traffic and so on is a problem. For example, not leaving enough of a gap, going faster than the flow of traffic, not entering and leaving the flwo of traffic properly, not being aware of other cars and the non/existence of ‘gaps’ in traffic (ie blindspots), etc. Did the ad combat any of these things? No. Waste of money.
Now that’s some real deconstructivist thinking!
Yes, well phil at least I am thinking, and have thought about this over 4 and a half years of PhD research, unlike you who does not seem to be thinking beyond making irrelevant fuckwit quips
Glen, get real mate, I couldn’t give a rats about your PhD. In fact just you waving it around disqualifies you immediately in my eyes as someone who I’d like to hear from.
Now can we hear from some real people, you know, the ones who don’t use their qualifications as a tool with which to silence debate and opinion.
The world is changing Glen, get used to it, be real, connect in a real way, your qualifications are meaningless, it what you bring to the table that connects with the lives of people who are not impressed with your obscurantist language that matters.
Learn and understand. And yes, this is a lecture.
Would they make a similar add about women with small breasts? I doubt it. This sexist crap should be taken off the air, and I expect feminists to stand up on this one too. LETS FACE IT, speeding laws are inconsistent at best, and deliberate revenue raisers at worst. Why should any young man respect this crap add? I sure as hell dont. All these new measures in the past 7 years have done nothing but increase the numbers of people driving around untrained without licences or with revoked licences. Lets make them retrospective and make every drver with a licence go through them for the next 2 years, otherwise this is just an example of government attacking a vulnerable minority that is unrepresented, young men, and scapegoating them.
Years of jokes about sports cars and small cocks hasn’t hurt the sales of Porsche and Ferrari any.
Just read through your posts Glen and agree with most of what you write. This is similar to Howard campaigns aimed at minorities, but at least most of those minorities have some type of advocacy group or the vote that represents them on the public stage. I dont know of any that represent young men on issues like these, and that is probably why you see people saying these types of things about young men in the first place, because so many untrue stereotypes are allowed to fester. To the people supporting this, think about it, you are really no better than the people that people that attacked ethnics during the Cronulla riots.
I must admit, I was hoping for a positive message to come out of the ad. Like, at the end some dude in a V8 with his mates stops to let an old biddy cross safely, and gets admiring looks from a nearby bevvy o’ supre-beauties. Then a round of blokey backslapping as his buddies give him props for being a chick magnet.
I did think it was a nice touch to have the driver’s mates deliver the last disapproval, but that’s not quite the positive I was after. Feeling a bit pollyanna this week.
Small wonder, when you think about it. A bit of research on Porsche and Ferrari sales since the advent of on-line p3n|s extension technology might turn up some interesting facts.
‘Ello, ‘ello, I think there might be a Ph D in that idea.
There’s definitely a conceptual vagueness at work here: what exactly is being targeted by this ad? Is it doing things that are dangerous, or doing things that annoy people? I can’t see the harm in making a lot of noise, but I can in not being attentive to pedestrian crossings or speeding. I find that people doing burn-outs and circling the block at 3am are a real source of frustration, but I don’t know whether that is a behaviour that we should be diverting our resources to address.
Anecdotally at least it’s the cutting lanes etc with little margin for error, as well as tailgating, that make me feel unsafe as a motorist. And it’s ordinary citizens driving to work that don’t stop at the pedestrian crossing at the bottom of my street that make me feel most unsafe as a pedestrian. I think Glen has a point, and if he reckons that this is going to mean nothing at all to those it’s supposed to be addressing, I’ve got no reason to disagree.
Cars ‘n’ cock, together at last.
Let’s just be glad it wasn’t one of those attention-getting let’s-shock-them-with-graphic-footage advertisements.
Main St, Greensborough: last Friday evening about 8pm: a woman crossing at the zebra stripes dropped her bag of full takeaway containers and when she stopped to pick it up was honked at by a boy in a car – she jumped about two feet and got off the crossing leaving her stuff in the road, which he then drove over.
Is that classified as dangerous behaviour or merely annoying?
I’ll take the graphic scaremongering over the pseudo-Freudian superiority of this ad any day.
Re:Phil on 25 June 2007 at 1:41 pm
I dont think he was using it to try and silence you, just to state that he knows what he is talking about.
“your qualifications are meaningless”, only to people without a brain.
Re:Laura on 25 June 2007 at 2:06 pm
It is inconsiderate behaviour by the driver, but the pedestrian was holding the driver up through their own fault(dropping the bags on the roads). If I was the pedestrian, I would have just picked the things up, so I cant really blame the guy for driving over them if they are on the road.
Laura, if anecdotes are all we’re going by, I’ve got about a dozen reasons to believe that middle-aged worker drones are the greatest threat to my personal safety. I think the statistical information Glen cites – and has cited elsewhere – is pretty convincing. I don’t think that just because young men do something that that means it is their problem alone. What I notice more often from young drivers is a higher degree of visibility due to loud music, loud colours, revving and burnouts. Are any of these things a road safety problem in and of themselves?
The purpose of the ads is to demonstrate to the community that the state government is sincerely concerned about road safety.
The federal government has rejected the ads as too little too late. Prime Minister Howard has announced a task force of troops and medical orderlies to conduct penis length examinations throughout the western suburbs.
wtf is a middle aged worker drone, Adam. Sheesh.
It’s 9-to-5ers who are old enough to know better, but who simply must get to work on time, and therefore ignore all road rules at the expense of pedestrians and other motorists. Often there is a worried or glazed expression on their faces as they try to run me down.
Anyone with a driving licence is old enough to know better.
wtf indeed. What is about the topic of driving that brings out the worst in people. Yes I know we all think it’s our god given right to drive as we like, but only a complete idiot would use the phrase ‘revenue raising’ used in connection with speeding fines. Must be why you hear it all the time.
Here’s an idea for incognito – try not exceeding the speed limit, and you’ll find that no revenue will be raised. Last time I checked, excessive speeding is an entirely voluntary activity.
The ad itself is a good attempt at trying to change some entrenched cultural norms, but judging from some of the comments here, it’s unlikely to change anything.
<nitpick>Anyone with a driving licence is assumed to know better.</nitpick> What I’m seeing in these comments is anecdotal evidence that the assumption is false. Hardly a surprise, and I’m sure there’s plenty of research to back that up.
Consider the contrast between the attitude we have to bad motorists – whether they be hoons, drunk drivers or peak-hour F1 drivers and train drivers or pilots who show themselves incompetent in the safe operation of their vehicles.
We wouldn’t be having this argument if it were a CAA crackdown on pilots buzzing suburban rooftops on their way in to land, or train drivers being fired for operating their locomotives unsafely.
An ad campaign suggesting that hoons have small willies isn’t exactly hard on the poor, misunderstood, inconsiderate, little buggers. If anything, it’s a bit of a flaccid response.
All counter-posed stereotypes and anecdotes aside, I am convinced that high visibility is not the same as high incidence of unsafe practices. Beyond that, I think the ad is unimaginative and is probably going to be ineffective.
Hey Adrian, when speeding cameras are not placed on specific areas where speed is known to cause accidents and instead on places on the road where a slope causes a slight increase in speed and so causes more people to be going slightly over the speed limit, than I might respect them as not being revenue raisers, but until than that is what they are. The speed limits are so inexplicably varied that one can go between 10 different speed zones in a 10 minute trip so speeding is often not a voluntary action. The add is nothing but a reinforcement of negative stereotyping of young men that have no representation in the public debate. If anyone but young men were targeted with a campaign of this variety, than it would never go to air. Could you imagine a female child being shown a similar expression for having small breasts because she doesnt eat a chicken based diet? Adrian, only a troll would reduce the argument to name calling.
Incognito, defending and/or trying to justify speeding is not going to help your arguments against the ad.
Speed cameras are the opposite of this ad: they are very effective at getting the message across, they don’t target a single group of motorists and they only affect those who are doing something that is genuinely dangerous ie speeding.
Adam, the crash statistics speak for themselves, if yopu wish to look beyond stereotypes and anecdotes.
For example a 17 year-old P1 driver is four times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash than a driver aged 26 and older. Likewise, drivers under 26 have 15% of all licences, but are involved in 36% of fatalities.
It seems obvious that the ad is an attempt to address these rather horrific statistics. Just imagine if these deaths were caused by something other than driving.
What adrian said, Adam.
Incompetent driving of the sort you point to isn’t likely to kill anyone. A case to consider – I’ve had a couple of jobs where I was on the road 4-5 hours a day. I developed a healthy distrust for the good intentions of taxi drivers – they’ll push it at a crosswalk to intimidate folks into not crossing; they’ll drive at 30kph when they’ve got a fare, hoping for another red light; they’ll stop suddenly in the middle of the road, and they will NEVER give way. But how many folks get killed in accidents involving a cab?
Yes, adrian, I agree that addressing those issues is important but my problem from the beginning has been the conceptual collapse of the highly visible with the highly dangerous, as well as the likely effectiveness of the campaign. I think part of the viability of the ad relates to the fact that a lot of people are annoyed by young men making noise in very visible cars. My real concern is with the representations mobilised rather than the intent of the advertising.
There is also an argument for dealing with ‘normal’ risky driving practices that are prevalent across the spectrum of ages, because these dangerous practices will be emulated, though less successfully, by inexperienced drivers. If a practice is prevalent across the board, but it mostly results in the young having accidents, it is as much a problem of the mainstream driving culture that those young men are entering into as of youth subcultures around automobility.
Re: adrian on 25 June 2007 at 3:21 pm
You could make the same argument for making a demeaning advertisement to negros in America, with people making monkey noises whenever they commit a crime, because after all, negros commit a higher rate of crimes(and fatalities in crimes). That advertisement could be said to address that type of horrific statistic, it still wouldnt be rightly crucified for demeaning a minority. Also, those statistics do not take in all factors such as a 17 year old p-plater is likely to have a car 4 times as crap and unsafe as a driver 26 years or older(okay maybe not 4 times, but the point is the statistics dont detail all of the factors involved).
FDB, there is still a good argument for promoting ‘better’ driving practices amongst cabbies, because in spite of their relative mastery of some of those techniques, their use of those strategies is like a moving billboard saying ‘You can drive dangerously when you get good enough’.
*would (instead of wouldnt)
I am shocked that it is deemed acceptable to have a government sponsored advertisment that reenforces, quite harshly, that it is appropriate to demean someone based on the size of their sexual genitals. What is next, advertisements where a bully demeans a scrawny man in glasses who reads alot?
Leaving the government advertising aside for the time being, I think the most likely result of your last comment, incognito, is a lot of demeaning comments on the size of your intellect.
I just love how people think it is acceptable to demean men in a way that they would never think of demeaning women.
I have placed this ad on the Melbourne Victory fan forum
Even though it is in Victoria, the forum has a great number of participants who would be in the target “age of that commercial. These are some of the comments so far:
“Well according to most experts in this country my 170km/h trip down the autobahn in a German taxi last year would mean that I should be dead!… wow…. guess what I’m still alive and I didn’t see accidents every second kilometre.”
“I think that’s a terribly executed idea for an ad…”
“Lame”
“Pathetic, no effect….”
“the thing that shits me about some of these adds
where is the responsibility of the pedestrian?
like the chick who gets hit at 60 and geta bruise, if you hit her at 65 she is in a world a pain
here is an idea.
HOW ABOUT YOU LOOK BEFORE YOU CROSS THE ROAD YOU STUPID BITCH”
“That was so 1999.”
Glen, thanks for interesting comments, regardless of whether you are actually doing a thesis or not. You saved the thread for me, not least because my
own computer is clapped on a number of levels so can only guess what the add was on about, but think have worked it out.
Two comments.
Firstly, the aim is not to embarrass a juvenile twat for the size of his pud, but for its misuse.
Secondly, Laura, I must concur with your comments, as I understand them.
It is indeed a scandal that in a civilized society women are being permitted to roam the stretets unattended, without a chaperone or responsible male guardian in sight.
Hence must reiterate Incognito , but remind Incognito that it was actaully supervision at fault here, although can understand response of driver.
And you’re suggesting what exactly, Guido?
Incognito,
I’ll demean a woman for the size of her intellect any time, no worries. I’m equal opportunity in that respect. But I’ll never demean a woman for having a small willy.
Gummo, what about small breasts?
Lol, Gummo.
I thought Andrew that the negative reactions from people that I suspect are in their late teens and early 20’s interesting.
Overall they are negative and I suspect they re-enforce the argument that telling young men that they have small penises may not be as successful as they may hope.
Of course this is just a small exercise. Hopefully the campaign will be a success. Anything that reduces road trauma is to be supported.
paul walter on 25 June 2007 at 4:06 pm
wtf are you talking about? My reply had nothing to do with gender(which I thought was sexist to bother placing in the question anway), but about responsibility. Roads are very obviously for cars, and a person driving a car has the reasonable expectation that they should not be needlessly held up because of a fault of the pedestrian. Although honking was rude, driving oce the person was off the road certainly wasnt.
Guido on 25 June 2007 at 4:14 pm
All that reenforces is that people who support soccer are a miserable lot to begin with.
I’m inclined to agree with that reading, Guido. As someone in my early to mid-20s, or even just as a human being, I feel like I would prefer a bit of sound reasoning directed at me, rather than a campaign directed at others asking them to judge and try to shame me. Of course I’m not exactly interpellated by the ad since I don’t own a car and rarely drive, but in a comparable context, that would be my feeling.
No Guido, I think the reactions are just about right, and across a broad demographic too. The Telegraph’s post on the video reflects that.
It’s always interesting to see the reactions of motorists of all stripes. Not a pretty sight generally.
To gauge the effectiveness of this ad, we need to be quite sure how a majority young men would answer this question.
“Would you rather be thought of as being hung like a cashew, or hung like a donkey?”
I reckon the ad’s got legs.
Incog, your 2.18 post complained of a woman dropping her shopping being “honked” by some squeeze, “through her own fault”
Am actually agreeing, but pointing out in defense of woman that it was not (only) the woman’s “own fault”, but irresponsible absence of her ‘awol’ male supervision (tedious task, true) ; this caused embarrassment for other male (the driver), though one admits, as you said,
“…cannot blame the guy”. Presume we ARE having responsible discussion about problems involving women at large unsupervised rather than engaging in ad HOMinem sort of retrogressive attack on “men”!?
paul walter on 25 June 2007 at 4:38 pm
I in no way implied that the gender was relevant in the post.
LOL!
Paul, you are deliberately misrepresenting what I wrote, which anyone else can view and read on this thread, so I am not going to bother responding to your silly insinuations.
Geez, Incognito!
No wonder you are “Incognito”.
I also agree with you on another subject, ami.
Small breasts.
Yes!
Small breasts are utterly superb on some women. Give me a woman with good small breasts to one of these pathetic, brainwashed, inflated, cosmeticised Stepford “enhanced” types, any time!
And give me a woman who has the guts to be herself instead of being so weak-willed and feeble-minded as to head, simpering, off to a plastic surgeon chasing after a palpably false illusion rather than trying to negotiate life through employment of intellect, patience, courage, humour and force of character.
I drive a high powered sportscar AND have a fucking huge member as well. Just sayin.
PS – Glen, you and jack stroker should start a group blog.
Guys, relevance please!
No, shame is a good motivator. There would be no semblance of even attempted civilisation without it.
Of course, men with small willies can’t help it, but doesn’t excuse them careening around the place drawing attention themselves in the most pathetic and more importantly dangerous way in public places. So if pointing out that they are doing this because of said miniscule dicks, then it’s got my vote buster.
Shame is totally brilliant if it actually takes place, or if people are motivated by an emotional script to avoid it in a given situation.
Hmmm. If I may make a rather provocative analogy, why does everyone assume that trying to hector and harass young bogan men into changing their behaviour is going to work any better than trying to hector indigenous people to change their behaviour?
Robert,
I don’t see the ads as hectoring – rather they’re depicting burn-outs and speeding as silly behaviours that don’t attract admiration.
And how is waggling a derisive little finger at a lead-foot “harassment”?
Of course I’m a little prejudiced on this issue – seems I can’t walk the streets these days without encountering at least one over-revving fool tearing away from the traffic lights while his mate yells “Gerraragalaggleyerfknpftr” (or words to that effect) from open passenger side window.
Bogan is an example of anti-Irish racism. You guys are all hypocritical when the issue cuts to the chase.
Incognito
Now thats the pot calling the kettle ‘negro’….
And “Negro” is an example of anti black racism, couple it with ‘monkey noises’ – and you get the evocation of a long racist history you have inappropriately drawn on to to make a facile point – take a pill.
Is this about a motoring PSA or not gentlemen?
No Casey, that was a valid response to the line of argument that was presented by Adrian as justification for the advertisement. Targetting the sexual genitals evokes a similar long history of the burden of the patriarchy and the value of the size of sexual apparatus, which, like being black, is not something that you can choose to be born with. I just think that you cant comphrehend the extent of my moral outrage with your shallow attempt to diminish the point about discrimination.
And I am not a hypocrite Casey, you saying it does not make it so.
Off topic, I know, but what’s the difference between sexual genitals and the non-sexual kind? This is a fascinating area of reproductive anatomy that I’ve never heard of before.
The word negro, is not something I would use, nor would I ever seriously compare the racism experienced by African Americans to the experiences of being a white boy with all sorts of privileges and rights black people just dont have – its just not as bad sorry!
And also your statement
“Targeting the sexual genitals evokes a similar long history of the burden of the patriarchy and the value of the size of sexual apparatus, which, like being black, is not something that you can choose to be born with.”
-suggests that the ‘deficiency’ that is attributed to size of genitals is equalled by the ‘deficiency’ of being born black. It would surprise you, would it, that many people who are African American would choose to be born Black all over again? That they do not regard it as a deficiency but are proud of it?
Incognito – like bogan – ‘negro’ has a history of racism attached to it. That was the point I was making but never mind, never mind. Sorry Phil. Back to the conversation
Gummo, as Glen was trying to point out in his inimitable style, men don’t hoon around in cars to impress women.
They do it a) because they find it fun (and as somebody who has done the odd burnout in the safety of an empty paddock, it *is* bloody enjoyable), and b) to impress other men. Having a bunch of women telling them that their vehicular proclivities implies having a small penis is missing the point entirely, and they’re likely to find it annoying.
Incognito, all joshing aside, the genital size thing is a metaphor, no? I mean women, and others, don’t really think or give a toss that these young fellas literally have microscopic dicks. Heh, (big secret) we don’t think of them sexually at all. But we do think, hence the RTA ad, that some men, and let’s not confine it to 18-25 year olds, mediate problematic issues of compensated sexuality and frustrated power through a hunk of fast moving plastic, rubber and metal to enornous personal and social ill effect.
That’s all understood and communicated in the little finger wagging.
jinmaro: and the men the ad is targetting don’t care.
ah, phallocentrism rules. Why do you assume, Robert, that the ad is primarily aimed in the first instance at the men in question?
It’s a slow burner and a damned clever one.
Sorry to get off-topic, but how is bogan anti-irish?
Gummo :
Well you will persist in walking around town with a clown nose on yr face
I can assure everyone here,who isnt interested in novelty,that a small penis,as far as I am concerned has nothing to do with driving skills. After all I havent a bloody car. I think this ad will not be effective,because,what is shown is typically advertising..and look at the illegality!? Whats the message in a depiction of illegality and then a small finger. George Bush is poking his tongue out re Laura and her boyfriend Dutton she ran straight into and killed him. And what if David Icke had something to say about this one finger salute…….. Sorry I havent been drinking,or using illegal substances,just a problem of seeing George and his tongue…..ICKEE ICKEEE POOO.
And then you’ll find that they’ll lower the speed limits. Trust me, 40kmh limits won’t be stupid enough for the idiots that set them.
BTW, if the size of male genitalia is directly proportional to driving behaviour, doesn’t that mean women are worst of all?
I haven’t seen the ad, but I’m complaining about it to the Advertising Standards Bureau.
Just kidding – noone could be precious enough to officially complain about an ad, not even Yet Another Patronising Safety Nazi Bullshit You Do Realise You’re Paying For It Sucker advertisement like this one.
trackback: “Lost my temper and exhausted my patience during a discussion of the new RTA advertisements on Larvatus Prodeo. The following is a less angry version of my comments.”
(BTW, craig mc is right about this ad actually being anti-feminist by reinscribing the dominant symbolic order. silly bourgies…)
Dann right, Craig Mc. It never ceases to amaze me how many stupid drivers there are. No matter how fast I go, there’s always some idiot who tries to go faster.
Then you get the idiots who drive across just because the light has turned green, without checking for drivers going the other way, through the red light. Let’s face it, if you’re going really fast, it’s hard to stop for the red light. People who get hit in such situations bring it on themselves.
And don’t get me started about pedestrians. Don’t they know how hard it is to stop at crossings. Several times I’ve nearly hit some idiot who started walking even though they could see me coming. Unlike those unemployed bludgers, I’ve got appointments to get to.
Let me guess: your brother might be coming the other way.
As someone almost taken out a couple of times by idiots like those portrayed in the Ad – & the same has happened to various pets & children in our neighbourhood, I’m all for it.
Intellectualise all you like. These idiots kill & injure…& make alot of freakin’ noise outside our house in the middle of the night. They terrorise.
Coming from someone who despises cars, period.
Imho, some of the worst killing machines in Human history.
Lotta rich people & Dynasties created out of them & their ancillary products.
We need more, safer alternatives.
Yes, nasking, but driving is legal and it’s one of the dominant modes of transport, so arguably any attempt to regulate the behaviour of drivers shouldn’t proceed from your contempt for cars, but should try to engage drivers in a way that they will respond to. As a system, automobility has a lot to answer for. In that, at least, I agree with you. But you are once again conflating two things that cannot be reduced to each other – doing something annoying and doing something dangerous. I’m not saying that the two don’t go together sometimes.
There does seem to be a bit of over-intellectualising here. Presumably the assumption of the ad is that young men drive in unsafe ways to impress other people and get noticed.
I don’t think this is an unfair assumption, based on my own experience.
My friends certainly behaved better on the road as they got older, and one friend in particular certainly drove with much higher risk when he had passengers, until his mid-20s. Now, in his late 20s, he drives much more safely.
I would have thought the aim of the ad is to suggest to these drivers that people (perhaps even your own friends) think less of you for driving unsafely, and to reinforce the same society values to the general public.
Notice how there are no sound arguments for those that support the purpose of this ad, just anecdotes, and the ability to overlook the extremely sexist tone of the advertisement. I have particuary noted that Laura has no problem with this advertisement but does have a problem with the nicotine patch advertisement. Some of the others are probably RTA sockpuppets trying to direct the tone of the argument.
“Some of the others are probably RTA sockpuppets trying to direct the tone of the argument.”
Paranoid much?
Can you see no difference between the two ads you so chastise Laura for having different reactions to? I’ll spell it out:
1) Males are made fun of for behaving irresponsibly. Women make the unfounded but frequently postulated inference that such behaviour is cock-compensatory in nature. The message is that people aren’t impressed by dangerous or rude driving.
2) Woman shoves private parts into the faces of men for a living, while addicted to a particular brand of chicken sauce. The message is that said chicken and sauce are delicious.
Which of the two is more sexually exploitative?
In which of the two is the message further removed from the imagery (i.e. the sex more gratuitous)?
I am a sockpuppetfortheRTA, and I drive the main roads,
Searching Technorati for another argumenttodirectthetoneof.
Okay, incognito, here is a sound argument for supporting the purpose of this ad.
It’s function is two-fold (as I see it):
1) It attempts to draw the attention of young men to what other people who are affected by their behaviour think of them, particularly women, by use of a simple visual metaphor – and I think it is correct to assume that the particular pseudo-Freudian judgement is prevalent in the community, so the metaphor ‘rings true’ for many viewers – in the hope that this will reduce reckless and dangerous driving practices, themselves associated with a higher number of accidents involving young drivers
2) It also encourages those attitudes, and gives them a universal ‘vocabulary’ in the form of a gesture in order to suggest a more effective community campaign, so that the effectiveness of 1) is increased
So the reasons for the ad are sound – communicating a judgement in order to reduce the road toll – and the idea of how it is supposed to work – through an appeal to shame, as defined by ‘interest’ in what people think of you – is also reasoned to a point. I happen to believe it is a silly campaign which will amuse people, but won’t successfully interpellate young men or deal with substantive problems associated with automobility. I also think it deliberately blurs the offensive with the dangerous, and thus misses another target. But you can’t fault the “purpose of the ad”, only the execution of it.
incognito – a conspiracy theorist without a cause.
I love that chicken ad – I’m still not sure what it’s for. I actually think it might be a Chaser stunt.
If the Govenrment was for real they would routinely release some particularly gruesome crime scene/motor accident photos and show some mugshots of people in gaol for vehicular manslaughter, subject to other legal issues. On their website and youtube as well as in RTA shopfronts, you know, perhaps on the front cover of your licence application or registration renewals. Put it in their newsletter they have in their shopfronts. A cursory glance at motor accident photos from a forensic pathology text is enough to scare you into driving safely. Ever seen a body burnt to a crisp in a car? It looks like the front of an Iron Maiden album’s artwork. Absolutely confronting and unforgiving.
I bet that won’t appeal to the creative muppets at the RTA. Not “hip” enough with the “youth”. Hey, it would be ridiculously cheap compared to TV time. Instead we get some lame jokes about penis size. The last time you were late to work, did it shrink? Too many people speed rather than habitually drive recklessly for these ads to have a point.
No one gets vilified either in my awful but useful idea.
Re:FDB
The only message from the RTA advertisement is that it is appropriate to demean young men based upon the size of their penis. None of you would put up with it if women were demeaned in a similar way based on something to do with their body shape, like their breasts.
Re: Adam Gall
It attempts to say that is okay to demean men based on the size of their penis. It does not encourage anyone to change their attitude, just to show young men looking embarassed by the use of the sign.
Mark, your awful, but ‘useful’ idea has been tried many, many times before. Trouble is the target group thinks that they’re invincible, that it’ll never happen to them.
As the most recent statistics that I quoted an extract from indicate, because fatal accidents for all age groups other than the target have decreased in recent years.
I know I need a small vacation, but the RTA more recruits won’t train
And when the ad is shown the intertubes won’t ever stand the strain
“Mark, your awful, but ‘useful’ idea has been tried many, many times before. Trouble is the target group thinks that they’re invincible, that it’ll never happen to them.”
I don’t think you are thinking about the same level of graphic content I am. The problem is, the State Government would be breaking State and Federal censorship laws.
I mean disseminating real accident photos. Not your BS ads where an accident is staged and you see some actor in hospital with stage make up on. These ads are not confronting enough.
“It attempts to say that is okay to demean men based on the size of their penis. It does not encourage anyone to change their attitude, just to show young men looking embarassed by the use of the sign.”
This is supposed to be a means to an end: it invokes the psychosexual drama of contemporary masculinity in order to redirect libidinal energy away from certain behaviours. For what it’s worth, I think it is a flawed approach, but I think it is more complex than simply a victimisation narrative.
Perhaps they could fund advertisements comparing the number of speeding fines with the number of accidents while they’re at it. Hey, I’m easy-going – they don’t even have to be speed-related accidents. You know, the ones where they tick the box marked “speed” when they have no idea what caused them. After all, if all cars were stationary accidents wouldn’t happen!
Good point. Although I implied that reckless behaviour is in fact the cause of accidents, not disobeying an arbitrary rule about speed.