This ad is really sad for a lot of reasons, but the one that makes me saddest is how ineffective it will be, no matter how good it is. Click to watch.
It’s no secret that New Mexico has a drinking and driving problem. The state is a little less functional-alcoholic-housewife and a lot more dude-passed-out-on-the-railroad-tracks. What you may not know is that this has nothing to do with the fact that the main entertainment available is getting hammered, and nothing to do with whatever racist assumptions you have about Native Americans, and nothing to do with the fact that until recently you could buy booze there at a drive-in liquor store.
I never, ever, ever thought I would be the person who drinks before getting behind the wheel. Then I moved to New Mexico. First it was just a beer before going home. Then it was just a couple margaritas. Then, one night, I drove home at three a.m. secretly wishing that someone would pull me over for the sake of everyone else on the road.
Luckily there was no one else on the road.
My instinct is to say that I have no one to blame but myself. And I honestly believe that. But this is the same thinking New Mexicans have followed for years, and tried to address with ad campaigns telling people that they have no one to blame but themselves, and it’s changed almost nothing. Admittedly, the state has gone to other lengths to try and cut back on drunk driving, like raising penalties, raising taxes, and raising the price of an alcohol permit so high that only the really determined businesses can get them. There have been some small results, but people still drink and drive. Why? Because you have to drive literally everywhere for literally everything. Even if home is technically walking distance, it’s probably freezing, sweltering or flash flooding, and if you have tits you’ll probably be followed for six blocks by a lowrider.
We already know first-hand in this country that no law can make people stop drinking. What we have to do is get people to stop driving. In New Mexico:
1. Make it easier to get an alcohol permit so that more neighborhoods have decent bars and people don’t have to go across town to drink.
2. Drastically improve public transportation so that when they do go across town to drink, they never have to drive.
That’s it. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be a hell of a lot more effective than any ad.
Some readers (*cough*my mom*cough*) may be wondering if I’ve ever driven that wasted again. I haven’t. The first-hand realization that my reflexes were actually delayed enough that I would not be able to avoid hitting anything unexpected scared the crap out of me. Then, before that fear could wear off, I moved back to San Francisco where there’s a bar on every corner and I can walk home from anywhere.
If you want to change someone’s behavior, make it easier for them to do what you want. If that fails, make it easier for them to do what they want.
(Also, hats off to the guys at VWK and Smoke & Mirrors for putting together a decent ad, and I sincerely hope it gets at least one person to think twice.)
One Comment
Excellent bloggy post. Personal, opinionated and makes perfect sense.
Much of the effort that organisations make to improve employee’s ‘Learning and Development’ should be redirected into improving the organisations themselves. I suspect this is true for most organisations over a certain size.
Training departments in pathological organisations is very similar to me having a diet coke with my Big Mac. Tasty Big Mac, though. Sigh.
I had a similar thought to the above when I signed up for PearlTrees when I was invited to watch video tutorials – why not put the effort into the interface rather than the frickin’ tutorials?