Unaccompanied learner drivers TV ad gives grave pause for thought
SITTING in one of the reclining seats at my local cinema on Thursday night, eagerly awaiting the start of a film I’d been looking forward, my sense of absolute comfort was completely upset when an ad came on in which an elderly man described how his life will never be the same again following the death of his wife and daughter in an accident.
The murmurs of fellow cinema-goers faded to not even a whisper as everyone was so stunned by what they had seen and heard that it seemed disrespectful to utter a noise, to not pay full attention to what the heartbroken protagonist of a real life drama was saying in the minute long ad.
No detail was spared as Noel Clancy described how his wife Geraldine and daughter Louise were killed in an accident in December 2015 when a car – driven by an unaccompanied learner driver – was in collision with them. The Clancys’ car flipped on to its roof and through a hole in a stone wall before it ended up in a narrow canal-like drain. The Clancys drowned as rescuers could not open the car doors in time to get them out.
The driver later pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing the deaths of Mr Clancy’s wife and daughter, and she was given a three-year suspended jail sentence and banned from driving for 15 years. Mr Clancy, who joined in the attempted rescue of the victims without realising who they were, said it was a harrowing experience for him to participate in the RSA ad for its Crashed Lives series, In it, he says: ‘The undertaker asked me what coffin would we lower first. I told him we would lower Geraldine first and then place Louise back in her arms. I will never see my wife and daughter again.’
Re-living the tragedy, he said his motivation was not retribution against a young woman who lives within one kilometre from him, but for it to be so hard-hitting that people would sit up and pay attention while highlighting a recent change in the law that allows gardaí to confiscate cars driven by unaccompanied learner drivers.
The previous RSA ad in which a mother described the death of her son, was also a very difficult watch and over time it did have a lasting effect on me, for one, and I still remember the boy’s name Ciarán. To see such a personal tragedy played out on a cinema screen was highly effective and did give pause for thought on a day in which an inquest which I covered in New Ross highlighted how human error had led to the death of four people in a car accident outside New Ross.
The ad has been described as being in extremely bad taste online and has been the subject of more than ten complaints. However, Mr Clancy said he made no apologies for its emotional nature.
In 2012 an ad showing a young girl dying on a hospital trolley in England generated a huge response.
We are living in the age of shock, in a time when we are over-stimulated and our minds too cluttered and busy with information. Like hamsters on a wheel or Pavlov’s dog many are falling into dangerous behavioural patterns. Look around you while out driving today and I’m sure you’ll see someone looking at their phone while driving. The debate about the ad itself raises the issue in the public’s mind and has a recall factor.