In brief, the Western Australian Government and their Road Safety Commission released a campaign with adverts showing bike riding as the punishment for people who have lost their drivers license speeding. The rider is portrayed as the looser who has to ride his little green bike and suffer the scorn of others.
There was a pretty fast backlash and the adverts removed by Road Safety Minister Michelle Roberts.
It would have desirable for a campaign that costs tax-payers money to be properly reviewed during and following productionI did not see them before they went live and as soon as concerns were raised with me, I acted swiftly to have them taken down," she said.
I approved the Road Safety Commission to develop a campaign addressing driver's risk taking behaviour and specifically requested further detail.
This did not happen.
Stephen Hodge of We Ride Australia (which is new and is the public name for the Cycling Promotion Foundation) also has a commented
"But when we see the latest road safety campaign from the Western Australian Road Safety Commission, we are incredibly disappointed with the content that portrays the choice to ride a bike as social suicide, ridiculous and the choice of no one if they have an option to drive a car," he said.
"It's hard to fathom that in all three campaign videos released online, the focus is on a single mode of transport as a form of punishment, reinforcing negative, entrenched pre-conceptions and myths around people who choose to ride bikes."
"Sadly, the campaign only tells the people of WA an inaccurate, negative and ridiculous story of why only 'losers' ride a bike."
All happened fairly quickly - a real shame for the wasted money which could have been spent on a clever or smarter message.
Here is an article:
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/cycli ... 0w82c.html