Fear of Driving

As an alum of two car crashes myself, I have noted with particular interest the new, violently surprising Volkswagen ad campaign. If you haven't seen them yourself, I would beg you to watch them here first.

Of course, if you're not an internet video person (I'm just starting to warm up to this concept myself), then I will try to explain the ads, though I may not do them justice. Imagine cruising home in a car after a long evening with some friends, talking about the events of the night, mini-issues with significant others, laughing, decompressing and then, another car slams into you, or a truck backs out of a hidden driveway. Imagine, in a moment, totally losing your orientation, jerking in your seat, hearing the crunching sound of metal, and after the split-second you've used to assess that nothing's broken on you, you look around for your friends.

That's what it's like to be in a car crash...except that it happens in a fraction of the time that it took you to read that. And it's depicted in these VW ads.

I've never tried to buy a car (and highly doubt that I'll get to a point or place where I'll need to), but as the Slate article says, I can't imagine in the past that young people have bought cars with safety on the mind. Now, instead of targeting cautious soccer moms, VW is trying to scare the living hell out of folks like us, so that maybe we'll reconsider. If two guys talking about girls while rolling down a pretty harmless-looking suburban street can get into a mess like that, why couldn't we? In both of the crashes I've been involved with, I was in cars of a Honda-make, and I feel lucky for that. Well, I feel lucky in general, but those cars are safe. And when you flip your car -- as I did, first because of rain and second because of a deer on the parkway -- you want to be in a safe car.

So...the big question is, will fear translate into sales? I have to say, I'm convinced. I'm VERY convinced. If VW has "highest government side impact rating", I want it.

*** The Washington Post's take on the ad campaign.

"WHAM" image from www.dynamicduostudio.com/ main/editorial.htm.