As much as I like to flatter myself into believing I don't watch that much television, I watch enough to be up on the current rotation of commercials running.
Volkswagen, always on the cutting edge when it comes to shilling their product, is showing a series of commercials to emphasize the safety of their product, with the tag line “Safe Happens”. They are truly disturbing to watch, as the actors are going about their routine day driving until a car comes out of nowhere and hits them. Except that the viewer can see the accident about to happen.
I hate them. I hate them a lot. I really hate the most recent one, which has two actresses debating the merits of this latest add campaign, only to be hit by car. I'm sure the ad agency executives enjoyed the post-modern irony, but it is not funny.
Why? Because I know, firsthand, what it is like to have a vehicle come out of nowhere and slam my car into a guardrail. It has been ten years and I can still hear the screeching of the brakes and feel the impact on the passenger side. I can still remember how loudly I screamed as my vehicle spun 180 degrees.
I also remember how fortunate I was to be hit on the passenger side, where no one was sitting. I was fortunate the other driver was moving so fast that the impact, which sent my car into the spin, also caused the passenger side of the car to hit the guardrail. I walked away with a totaled car and three bruises.
I was lucky to have really terrific co-workers who organized a system, without my asking, to make sure I got to and from work everyday. I was lucky to have a friend available to spend the rest of the day driving me to the hospital, the insurance agent and out for ice cream. I was lucky to have a neighbor who forced the keys to his car into my hand the next day and made me drive.
While I respect that Volkswagen has come up with a clever way to market the safety of their product, the commercials are emotionally manipulative and feed into the overall climate of fear generated by everyone from politicians to religious leaders. It took a long time before I could confidently get behind the wheel of my car and drive without worry. Every time a network runs one of the commercials I am forced to relieve that accident over again.
You know, when I first saw those commercials the first thing I thought of was "I wonder how people who have been in bad accidents will react to this". I don't really like them either. I think they are going for the shock value, but there are lots of pretty safe cars out there, especially in VW's price range.
ReplyDeleteIf I remember correctly what I was seeing in the VW advert in question, the two characters' VW is stationary in the middle of a T-intersection when the other car broadsides it. I hope I'm remembering that wrongly, but that's what I thought I was seeing, and if that's right, it's pretty egregious.
ReplyDeleteI took a "beam aspect" driver's-side hit at about 30 mph in San Antonio one night. One aspect of car crashes that's never represented properly on TV and in movies is that response-to-impact, no matter how well cushioned the victim, causes the body to sustain a lot of internal damage from getting violently accelerated. I didn't have any visible bruises, but I was one sore puppy from head to foot for the next few days.