Ben Lowry: Road ads in Northern Ireland that seek to shock are less effective than the subtle ads in Great Britain that hint at carnage

This week on Twitter I came across a video from Highways England, warning drivers of the danger of driving too close to the car in front.
The Highways England 'Space Invader' ad, using the phrase and imagery of the 1980s computer game, warning drivers not to get too close to each otherThe Highways England 'Space Invader' ad, using the phrase and imagery of the 1980s computer game, warning drivers not to get too close to each other
The Highways England 'Space Invader' ad, using the phrase and imagery of the 1980s computer game, warning drivers not to get too close to each other

Don’t be a “space invader” the clip said, using the name of the 1980s computer game, before a gremlin from it came between the two vehicles when they got too close.

It is tense to watch because at any moment you fear the cars will collide, and carnage.

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I retweeted the clip, saying it was more effective than the sometimes embarrassingly melodramatic road ads shown in Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland road safety ads lack subtlety and can be embarrassingly melodramaticThe Northern Ireland road safety ads lack subtlety and can be embarrassingly melodramatic
The Northern Ireland road safety ads lack subtlety and can be embarrassingly melodramatic

Someone responded by pointing me to a clip from Scotland, even better than the English one, in which the racing driver David Coulthard recreates a motorist’s fast journey along a country road and points out what can go wrong.

As someone who has written about the relentless fall in road deaths in NI (see below), I have no doubt about the value of TV ads (if 1970s fatality rates were applied to present traffic levels, 700+ people would die each year. Fewer than 70 people do).

But our NI ads almost seem to glory in showing, for example, how blaring music played by young people on a car trip can become the backdrop to blood and screams.

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Or they depict freakishly improbable events such as a car crushing a class of school children.

It is as if the director is waiting to say: “I shocked you there, didn’t I?”

These films would be more effective if more subtle. Some of the most terrifying horror films have been the least graphic.

Similarly, some 1970s road ads that depicted the run-up to a crash but pulled away from detail were so chilling I still remember them,

• Ben Lowry (@BenLowry2) is News Letter deputy editor