South Dakota’s Office of Highway Safety created an attention-grabbing and clever ad campaign aimed at educating people about safe driving practices in winter weather. Their slogan was “Don’t Jerk and Drive.”
The intended message was to advise motorists to not?over-correct the steering wheel while driving in icy conditions, but not everyone found the message amusing. The ad campaign was quickly pulled by Trevor Jones, the secretary of the Department of Public Safety for the state of South Carolina for its double entendre on the word “jerk.”
“This is an important safety message and I don’t want this innuendo to distract from our goal to save lives on the road,” said ?Jones in a statement obtained by the?Argus Leader.
It’s?unfortunate that we can have provocative, sexist commercials on television when the’sole purpose is to sell one material item or another, but heaven forbid there’s a?suggestive commercial aimed at saving lives.
What Jones clearly doesn’t understand is that the original ad campaign should be kept running because it would undoubtedly?save many lives, which is his main goal.??The reason it’s so appealing is because of its risqu? nature. Instead of trying to shut the campaign down, Jones should be embracing it. In order to educate people about safe driving practices, you first have to get them to watch the?ad, and what better way to do that than to grab their attention with a?slogan that gets people talking?
So if you haven’t learned anything else today, just remember: Don’t Jerk and Drive.
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Alecia Pasdera is a recent college graduate from Wisconsin who is currently working as a copy editor in Kentucky. Her academic background is in journalism and communication. Alecia sees a lot of problems with the world today, and although she doesn’t have the power to change them singlehandedly, she does have the power to write about them and raise awareness. It’s her belief that education and knowledge are the strongest tools in making tomorrow a better world for everyone. You can follow her personal blog at allthingsgrowingup.weebly.com.
