Rusty Saber: Car commercials have reckless disregard for safety

|tab|

Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.|ret||ret||tab|

|ret||ret||tab|

There is much that is good about television. Viewers can choose from the broadcast channels and an endless array of cable channels, all available at the touch of a remote. With so many choices, something worthwhile can be found. |ret||ret||tab|

TV commercials are a different story. Mostly the same commercials are viewed on all channels. Some of them may be just be as harmful as the antisocial behavior, violence and sex we may try to avoid on TV programs.|ret||ret||tab|

Most automobile commercials are on my list of ones that can negatively impact the easily influenced, both children and some adults. I'm not talking about local car commercials that scream at the audience. The only influence they have on me is that I refuse to buy a car from any dealer with screaming commercials.|ret||ret||tab|

No. I'm talking about commercials by automobile manufacturers that inspire a not-too-subtle trend of promoting high-speed cars and hazardous driving. |ret||ret||tab|

It seems that just about every auto commercial today has a disclaimer crawling across the bottom of the screen with a warning to the effect that the driver is a professional on a closed course. The inference: "Don't you drive like this." If that's the case, why promote sales by focusing on things owners shouldn't do?|ret||ret||tab|

On these closed courses, the current trend seems to be high speeds, usually concluding with power slides. Wet surfaces and dusty roads make the slides more sensational because water or dust fly up around the cars. Whatever the surface, the brakes are applied and the wheels are turned, sending the cars skidding sideways, or turning around completely. Not exactly maneuvers reputable car companies should be promoting. |ret||ret||tab|

Watch car commercials, and you will see a lot of power slides. Even Mercedes-Benz has adopted this dubious strategy. In a commercial the Mercedes first escapes a pack of motorcycles, and proceeds to screech around corners, rip through an alley and ends up escaping pursuers by going into a 180-degree power slide. Then a beautiful girl in another Mercedes pulls alongside him.|ret||ret||tab|

The commercial ends with a voice over: "The only way to catch one is to drive one." |ret||ret||tab|

I could be wrong it wouldn't be the first time but I seriously doubt that people pay the high price of a Mercedes in order to drive it in a demolition derby. The commercial makes reckless driving acceptable; even sexy.|ret||ret||tab|

The usually restrained Toyota Camry has an ad where the car careens around corners, speeds around levels of a parking garage, goes into a power slide on a bridge, and the driver jumps out of the car and lays on the pavement with arms and legs askew, making an X of himself. The message at the bottom of the screen insists that Toyota doesn't condone nor recommend such antics. If such risky nonsense isn't condoned, why pay big dollars to air it?|ret||ret||tab|

All but one of the current crop of Pontiac commercials features high speeds and the ever-popular power slides. The one ad without a power slide features a woman driving a Pontiac. We learn at the end that she is blind. A peculiar marketing strategy, indeed. I don't mean to pick on the companies mentioned here. Many, many other car, SUV and pickup ads are as scary as these; space limitations keep me from mentioning them.|ret||ret||tab|

I don't want to appear to be an old geezer finding fault with everything, but it seems to me that a steady diet of such stuff encourages fast and reckless driving. |ret||ret||tab|

Teen-agers, as well as adults who have yet to grow up, might assume that, although they aren't professional drivers on a closed course, such irresponsible driving is the norm. These commercials correspond with many of today's modern cars that have higher top speeds, some approaching 150 miles per hour, to be driven on jam-packed highways with maximum speeds of 75 miles per hour.|ret||ret||tab|

To bolster sales, fast zero-to-60 times and high optimal speed are labeled as "performance." Stunt driving is the means of marketing performance. It seems to me that commercials glorifying reckless driving in cars built for excessive speed creates unnecessarily perilous traffic situations. |ret||ret||tab|

Of course, I could be wrong.|ret||ret||tab|

[[In-content Ad]]