So I’m watching the latest commercial for the Hyundai Kona, the one where the young driver is chatting with three other passengers while looking and laughing about something on a cellphone. The car starts swerving into the other lane, and the announcer starts bragging about the car’s safety features. When did driving responsibly stop mattering any more? At the very least the commercial should have ended with the driver, scared shitless, telling her passengers not to distract her.
Don’t worry, cars are self driving now. I’m sure I heard that somewhere.
Maybe this should be in the bad commercials thread?
Loot at the expression on the driver’s face at 0:16 – she is scared shitless (though, the ad lacks the berating you want to see).
Yes, absolutely, drivers have a responsibility to not be distracted while driving. Reality, for most drivers, is something less than that ideal, and even if I’m a good, non-distracted driver, I’d be happy to know that my car, as well as the other cars on the road, have technology to protect me from the distractables.
Not really. This isn’t the only car commercial where the driver is inattentive idiot, and the announcer declares that the only solution that comes to mind is more beeps, bells and whistles. Not even a “Honey, why don’t you pay attention to the road?” from the other passengers.
She looks mildly perturbed to me.
You’d rather have a bloodcurdling scream, yes?
Honestly, if the ad perturbs you, and you feel that it’s normalizing inattentive driving, complain to Hyundai. If they hear a sufficiently large number of people telling them that, there’s a real chance that they will pull or edit the ad.
And so? Is it not is a commercial we hate?
I have. Does that mean I shouldn’t bring it up here?
No, but until you said the above, all that was obvious to the rest of us here was that you were complaining about it to a bunch of us dweebs on a message board, which can certainly be a good way to vent, but will have no net effect on anything.
The thing is, there are so many ways to depict a driver being distracted without showing them doing bad driving practices-- a guy driving in a carpool, watching the road, until the passenger spills some coffee on or near him, or a mom with kids in the backseat, and a kid throws a toy and distracts her.
To implicitly say in this commercial “it’s OK now to goof around and not pay attention to the road anymore because we have your back” does seem highly irresponsible. So I agree, disturbing commercial.
Like it or not (I do not in my car), cars come with a host of nanny systems aimed at helping distracted drivers and improving safety for all who share the roads. There’s a Subaru commercial in which a young woman, driving alone, looks down on her cell phone as she pulls out into the intersection and almost gets hit by another car were it not for Subaru’s forward & side looking radar and automatic braking system.
Automobile manufacturers aren’t selling good driving habits, they are selling cars that mitigate bad driving habits.
To be fair, there’s also a woman walking into on coming traffic on a highway. I think we can safely call the commercial fiction.
One of the problems I’ve noticed with this is that they tend to make people, myself very much included, reliant on them to the point of being lax WRT paying attention. Twice I’ve almost been backed into (once I had to yell at the driver to get them to stop as I pulled my daughter out of the way) as someone was backing out of a spot in a parking lot. In both cases, I could see that instead of looking over their shoulder or around the car, they were completely fixated on the rear view camera and I was off to the side enough that the camera didn’t see me.
And for myself as well. My car has a side view camera. I’ve gotten very, very used to it. I check my mirror, turn on my signal, check the display for cars in the blind spot and move over. From time to time I drive a different car that doesn’t have a side view camera and have caught myself moving over without checking my blind spot. What I realized is that, in my car, my brain isn’t looking for a car in the display, it’s looking for the absence of a car (indicating it’s safe to move). In cars without a side view camera, I turn on the blinker, stare at the spot on the dash board where my display would be and my brain seems to say ‘those knobs and dials aren’t cars, go ahead and change lanes’. Now that I’m aware that I do it, I don’t do it, but it always catches me off guard and I have to actively think about it.
I don’t know what they’re teaching in driving school these days, but hopefully they teach new drivers to use the rear and side view cameras as a secondary means of making sure it’s safe to move. For example, visually looking behind/over your shoulder but use the cameras to make sure the spot remains empty as you move into it or back up.
Maybe the target market is the parents of such drivers. After 16 years or more, any parent knows its easier to buy a safer car than to train a safer kid.
Doesn’t matter how well you teach your kids to drive safely; accidents happen, even to the best drivers. And there have been some horrific accidents when multiple teens are in the car together. I think their brains collectively lose some IQ points by being in close proximity. (Hell I’ve done stupid shit in the car when I was younger and driving with others in the car.)
How about at the end of the commercial, the parents get an email from the car detailing the incident?
Inattention should not be consequence free. It’s far better if no one is harmed, but it’s best if they are still held accountable for their negligence.
I was glad to see that expression (and I’ve made that face myself more than once*). That said, I would’ve rather had the announcer drag her out through her window and start kicking some sense into her…
*I tend to drive vintage cars with zero safety features. As I get older, I suppose I should resign myself to eventually buying a car built in this century. Just to get lane/braking/backing technology, to protect me from being an old coot…
This video was made by some Welsh students back in 2009. It’s pretty horrific but it was all acting.
PSA Texting While Driving UK - COW (Short Version) - YouTube
I wanted to find the full version, but my google-fu failed me.
Just below the video in your link is this link to the 4 minute video.
Gee, it’s almost as if the commercial was trying to sell you something. Excuse me while I clutch my pearls!