3 October 2002: Research carried out in New Zealand suggests that ‘high fear arousal’ anti-drink driving advertisements do not have as much affect on actual drink driving as expected.

The study found that the campaign appeared to be successful in increasing the perceived apprehension and crash risks associated with drunk driving and decreasing the intentions of the drivers to drink and drive. However, the campaign did not cause a stronger change in the target audience relative to the nontarget audience.

The study was done by Richard Tay, Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety, Queensland University of Technology, Carseldine, Australia, on a sample of students at Lincoln University in New Zealand. He says that the audience should be provided with effective and viable ‘coping strategies’ to address the threat associated with drunk driving rather than them simply being subjected to high-shock advertisements.

There’s been a long-running programme of such shock advertising in Ireland, organised by the National Safety Council with support from insurance company AXA.