Tag: yeah i see what you did there

In of course the higher-ups are going to ruin a good thing news, a South Dakota highway safety campaign has been yanked after it went viral last week.

As you may have heard, the South Dakota Office of Highway Safety decided to go full double-entendre with their new winter weather safe driving campaign, #DontJerkAndDrive. Jerking isn’t a joke, they said, Nobody likes a jerker, they said. The true message behind the campaign was to refrain from jerking the wheel when your car hits a slick spot, but the joke was pretty clear.

And it didn’t sit well with some inside the state’s governmental agencies.

It turns out that the innuendo was most definitely intentional (duh) – and that didn’t fly with everyone in the state. From the Argus Leader:

“The message is that we’d prefer drivers keep their cars out of the ditch and their minds out of the gutter,” said Lee Axdahl, director of the office of Highway Safety.

But the language didn’t play well with some South Dakotans, and now the state has pulled back.

“I decided to pull the ad,” said Trevor Jones, the secretary of the Department of Public Safety — and Axdahl’s boss — in a statement. “This is an important safety message and I don’t want this innuendo to distract from our goal to save lives on the road.”

Apparently, the campaign had really pissed off some state lawmakers – one of which called it a “terrible error in judgment”.

I’m going to have to disagree with you, boss man. Not only did it bring national attention to your state’s campaign, but it was an undeniably smart campaign at its core. How the hell are you supposed to make anyone care about a public safety campaign without adding a masturbation joke?

Either nobody at the South Dakota Office of Highway Safety is paying attention, or everybody there is really, really great. Simply top notch.

This winter, if you feel your automobile begin to lose its grip on the road during icy conditions, the state of South Dakota wants to make sure you don’t jerk it.

Jerking isn’t a joke, they say. Agreed. Traffic accidents kill – and they are especially prevalent in the winter months. But …

South Dakota wants you to resist the urge to jerk.

“Winter driving can be treacherous for new and experienced drivers alike. Drive proper and you can avoid a common mistake: jerking the wheel when your tire leaves a snowy or icy road. If you feel your tire leave the road, remember these three simple steps: stay the course, let off the gas and reenter traffic once it’s safe. That’s proper driving.”

There’s a video, which warns people that “nobody likes a jerker”.

And there’s a website and a hashtag campaign as well (#DontJerkAndDrive). The aforementioned website contains such gems as Don’t Jerk. Think and What are you doing to stop people from jerking?

To address the either/or in the lede, I’m going to go with option two. This is an attention grabber, and there’s no way that everyone inside that department could’ve looked at this without a chuckle.

I don’t even live in South Dakota, but you better believe that I’m going to be thinking about this campaign when it snows this winter. Mission accomplished.

Image via South Dakota Office of Highway Safety, via reddit