[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Too harsh, too authoritarian, to less liberal a reality for you again? As a psychologist I must tell you that you are wrong, and that we know from arranged experimnetal situations as well as from reality. Shock tactics, if only going deep enough, can replace a thousand words.

As a user I must tell you you're being an ass.
My objection is that I don't see these adverts as being very successful. To the standard person, who does not drive while drunk, they give every appearance of a hard-hitting campaign. Mostly, because they reinforce our ideas about drunk drivers (there's a post up therre about shooting them). In the mental rush to differentiate ourselves from those who drive when incapable, I think we overestimate the effectiveness of gory shock adverts. We (I'm assuming most people here don't drive drunk) are not the intended audience here.
I didn't make the nature of my objection very clear in my original post, true. But neither did I go off on what you might call a stereotypically liberal, anto-authoritarian rant. But you seem to think I did. Or you were looking to get an insult in, whatever.

Anyway, in response to Avon, no I don't have much to substantiate this. It's a straight up personal reaction. I can't visualise anyone remembering a gory advert when sitting behind the wheel, drunk, about to start their car.

Or is it maybe that you even want to prevent prohibition drinking and driving in combination, because you like to practice that yourself and don't want to change your habits on weekend? smokers, I remember, also easily come with excuses about their personal right and free unfolding of their personality when they are confronted with prohibitions in places, and demands to pay for their smoke-related diseases all by themselves instead of demanding the public to pay for that. They also complain about too restrictive rules, and an authoritarian state, and lacking tolerance of non-smokers.

What's going on here, Skybird?
Seriously, this looks like a very unusual line of argument, founded on an argument that I didn't make. Where am I complaining about a lack of tolerance for drink driving? All these "also"s, point me back to the first instance, will you? Or just get to the point already.
I have never driven while drunk. I've almost fallen asleep at the wheel, and it's scared the hell out of me. I'd call myself a careful driver. I also smoke. But, of course, there's no way for you to have known that.

Another objection I have to these is the impact on those who have lost loved ones to drunk-driving, and the desensitising effect of repeated violence. Can violent car crashes have an effect when every summer, theatres are filled with people paying to watch ever more violent car chases or crashes?
I'm not arguing for a form of censorship, just against advertising that I feel does little to work against a major societal problem.

Countries using shock banners on cigarette boxes report good experiences with that. The quota of young people stopping to smoke and not even starting to smoke significantly rose.

Look at the target group here.
Drivers who will drive while drunk are a subgroup of all Drivers. Most drivers will not choose to drive, even when very drunk. Common sense can override alcohol. I imagine most drunk drivers do it often, like you ask of me, maybe every weekend.

Now smokers are different. Cancer is unregulated cell division, yeah? There is no smoker who chooses to develop a throat tumour.
*as yet unspoken abjection*
Agreed, smokers can choose to smoke heavily or lightly. But there is a much smaller difference of risk than a driver who chooses not to drive drunk. A smoker can reduce the chance of cancer from 80% to 65% by cutting down, but a driver can reduce the possibility to <1% by choosing never to drive drunk.

Gore on cigarette packs and gore on drunk-driving ads are related, but still rather dissimiliar in their effect, I would argue.

Traffic experts say that showing drivers of all age groups videos with horror crashes after they had been waved out of the traffic line, show far greater insight than those who are just being lectured in words.

That is controlled, limited exposition to an audience of admitted dangerous drivers. Very different to these adverts, I think. In my original post I refer to trying t change society as opposed to small groups of bad drivers.