I
went to the cinema the other day. Nothing unusual in that - except that they now
serve sausage rolls - but I did notice one change. Gone were the entertaining
mini-dramas from Pearl and Dean. I missed the exciting music, the flickery,
grainy advert for the Moghul Tandoori and for hot dogs that look like legless
Dachshunds.
In their place were public information films. Not the amusing nonsense
telling us to hide under a table if a nuclear winter is forcast, but short
adverts about road safety.
For once I've got something positive to say. The ad featuring a biker
slamming into a car is both shocking and I'm very glad to say sensiblely
portrayed. It's taken an intelligent approach in pointing out that numpties (and
for that matter, the rest of us sometimes) don't always see bikers. Telling the
bikers to drive defensively and with their numpty-sensors on high alert seems
like a refreshingly intelligent approach to the problem.
My enthusiasm for a new age of thought provoking adverts was dashed shortly
after though. Not by the advert for Lynx armpit acid, but for another
'information' film about a kid getting run over. They reveal some staggering
statistic like 99% of all children are killed by traffic.
That in itself is a concern, but what did the advert tell me? It told me that
the kid got mown down by a monstrous 4x4 when he ran out into the road. Was it
trying to tell kids that they should use the Green Cross Code? I don't think so
- there was no sign of the Green Cross Code man. I suspect he'd just be accused
of being a Paedophile in 21st century Britain. Does it give tips to the driver
on improving their powers of observation or hazard awareness? No it doesn't. It
just tells me that 4x4's make a mess of lots of kids.
Which brings me onto my other gripe of the moment. Car designers are soon to
be hampered by new rules to make cars more 'pedestrian friendly'. Not a bad idea
if possible, but it does mean that cars of the future will have high bonnets and
puny engines in case anyone bangs their head on the rocker covers. It has to be
said that some of the legislation has already done some good such as removing
sharp extremeties such as headlamp wash/wipe mechanisms which were proving
difficult to extract from thighs. That's no reason for all cars of the future to
look like HYUNDAAAAIs though.
However, the next stage of safety measures for saloons are likely to be a bit
of a waste of time and will serve merely to give us ugly cars. Whilst all
the progress in the world can be made to mollycoddle pedestrians when slamming
into them in a Mondeo, the fact remains that 4x4xflattened sales are increasing
hand over fist.
The chances of getting mown down by an SUV the size of a Sherman tank are
higher than ever. The chances of anyone surviving such an impact are hugely
reduced when compared to our humble cars. So before we start fitting blankets
and pillows to the bonnets of saloons shouldn't something be done about the
plethora of mobile battering rams on our streets?
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