New York’s New Anti-Speeding Campaign

Recently, New York’s Department of Transportation has created a series of advertisements intended to cause drivers to think twice before speeding. The ads, which consist of images of New Yorkers holding up pictures of loved ones lost to speeding collisions, underlined with captions about who the individual was and what milestone they would be celebrating now if they were still alive, are meant to make drivers consider how one brief moment of reckless driving can have very permanent consequences.

The District of Columbia has similarly begun an advertising campaign against the dangers of speeding; instead of still photographs, the District of Columbia Department of Transportation and the Metropolitan Police Department have compiled a three minute video about the dangers of speeding, featuring police officers, surgeons, and others who deal with the aftermath of speeding accidents. The video emphasizes how serious the injuries caused by speeding are, with brain injury being one of the more common injuries of a speeding crash, and explains that accidents due to speeding are usually entirely avoidable.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, speeding is one of the most dangerous activities drivers can engage in on the road, causing nearly a third of all traffic fatalities, or killing approximately 10,000 people, each year. The hope is that advertising campaigns such as D.C.’s “Toward Zero Deaths” and New York’s photographs highlighting the tragedies that speeding causes will, in addition to stricter enforcement and increased ticketing for speeding, remind drivers to drive the speed limit and avoid the unnecessary risks that rushing to a destination can cause.

(Source: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/21217/who-has-the-best-anti-speeding-ads-new-york-or-dc/)