Danish Road Officials Use Topless Women to Encourage Driver Safety
COPENHAGEN — On an internet full of videos that seem real but aren’t, the new Danish road safety video certainly seemed likely to be the latter. Guess again — it’s the real thing!The video, which features comely young women carrying speed limit signs urging drivers to follow the law, but wearing nothing above their dainty waists, has been circulating through inbox systems far from the historic city of Copenhagen. According to Danish road safety council official Julia Pauli, the Speedbandits’ high satire “news” report isn’t a hoax; it’s deadly serious.
“If you want to reach the young people,” Pauli explains, “you have to communicate on their conditions… So, topless women are working.”
According to the BBC, response to the anti-speeding viral marketing campaign aimed at high risk young men has been mostly positive.
A quarter of all Danish road deaths are caused by speeding drivers, a percentage that has inspired officials to crack down on drivers who disregard speed limit signs. Part of that process is making the signs — and their existence — more visible. What better way then to have pretty blondes with nary a stitch above the waist hold them in an attempt to lure young men into greater compliance?
Pauli told the BBC that women hoping for their own version of the video, likely featuring hunky dudes wearing nothing below their waist, would have to wait and see.