This weekend on CNN, I saw a bit about a new safe driving initiative in Canada. The basis is to have an extended road decal that has a faux 3D appearance to look like a child chasing a ball into the road.
The goal is to have you slow down in high-accident areas and hopefully reduce risks. But as the report indicates, my first concern is over the potential that the same drivers who are taking risks now will become desensitized to these decals and will end up mistakenly end up hitting an actual child at play.
Check out the spot:
From the article:
What would happen if you saw a 3D illusion of a young girl chasing a ball across the street near a school?
A Canadian safety group hopes you’d slow down and think twice about speeding through a school zone. Critics of the image say it might scare drivers and lead to accidents.
Either way, she’s got your attention, which is the point, said a spokesman for Preventable, a British Columbia-based safety awareness group behind the stunt.
“This is a way to reinvigorate what becomes a pretty tired message every year. We become anesthetized to the risks related to driving, but the risks are very real, especially in British Columbia, where we have more than 400 fatalities each year related to motor vehicles,” said David Dunne, Director of the Traffic Safety Foundation and spokesperson for Preventable.
What do you think? Do you see this as helping with reducing risks or causing problems by making drivers brake hard or swerve or reducing the sensitivity over time?
Source: CNN