OPINION: ‘I’m sick of Ireland’s drink-driving attitude – bring back this old ad’

I was reminded of this ad recently after a conversation with my wife. While produced for the DOE in Northern Ireland, this ad, aimed at warning people to “never, ever drink and drive,” aired on television in the Republic of Ireland too. My wife and I were discussing drink-driving and got around to the road safety advertising we have now. It’s watered down in many ways but this one, released when I was nine years of age, still lives with me.

I found the clip on the Hall of Advertising YouTube channel and it stopped me in my tracks again, 25 years later. One of the comments on the video on YouTube reads: “I heard that song on the radio once. A cold shiver went up my spine.”

That was my first thought as the video played. I remembered everything else about the video and it all gave me the same feeling. The sound of the car revving as it flipped up towards the fence, the little girl screaming, the dad running to his son’s lifeless body in their garden, picking him up and sobbing. It is just as harrowing to this day. 

The clip can serve as a warning to a range of offences from drink and drug driving to speeding or using a mobile phone behind the wheel. We need hard-hitting adverts like this on TV, streaming services and social media more than ever before. Going about daily life in Ireland, I see so many people committing all of these offences. It’s an open secret in so many towns and villages about people drinking and driving. ‘Sure it’s only out the road, I only had two or three,’ and it’s getting worse, not better.

In 2024, 5,000 people were convicted for drink-driving, up 24% compared to 2023, and that’s just those caught and brought before the courts successfully. Many more thousands get caught and get off for technical reasons or never get stopped at all. People sometimes think the worst-case scenario is getting caught and that’s almost all they worry about. They don’t think of the scenario playing out in this advert.

We have become far too politically correct in this country, never wanting to push the boundaries and upset anyone. There was even a recent backlash to an ad encouraging men to get checked for prostate cancer with a new prick test because the slogans ‘prostate cancer is a real prick’ and ‘give prostate cancer the finger’ were used. It was argued on Liveline at the time that these could be offensive. We need to get real. They were provocative to attract attention for the right reason and that’s what we need with road safety again.

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A re-run of this exact ad with the amateur footballer scoring a big goal, sinking a few celebratory pints before getting behind the wheel to drive would hit home with people. Shock tactics work and of course people will say it’s too traumatising and children may see it and all the rest but this is the reality of so many fatal crashes in Ireland because we haven’t got the message. 

I saw this advert as a child and whether it’s the reason of part of the reason, I do not and never would drink and drive. This also isn’t a young or old issue. I’ve seen as many 50-year-olds as 20-year-olds getting into a car to drive after drink. Everyone who watches the advert above imagines their own child or their niece or the neighbours’ kids; that’s the whole point. We need to humanise this issue in a hard-hitting way. Sugar-coating it doesn’t work.