Essay on Public Service Announcements on Texting and Driving

The report – “Who Are We Scaring With High Fear Road Safety Advertising Campaigns?” addresses the effectiveness of fear-based anti-drunk driving advertisements. According to researchers Lucie Ozanne, Jati Santiono and Richard Tay, fear-based ads related to anti-drunk driving campaigns were only effect with certain sections of New Zealand’s population. The researchers wrote: “The campaign is aimed at changing attitudes towards dangerous driving by focusing on the dramatic consequences of such behavior and uses a strong appeal to the emotion of fear to achieve the objectives of the campaign.”

Each day in the United States, 8 people on average are killed in a distracted driving related accident (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016). Distracted driving can constitute anything from talking on the phone to reaching for a fallen object while driving. One way people have been fighting to combat the deadliness of distracted driving is through PSAs. PSAs are Public Service Announcements, like commercials, that warn people of dangerous activities and heighten their awareness of a problem. Even if people think no one pays attention to PSAs, if even one person saw and understood a PSA, it would make a difference. PSAs are an important part of the prevention of distracted driving because it heightens peoples' awareness of the

A Public Service Announcement (PSA) can help reduce the number of distracted driving accidents by explaining the horrible effects of distracted driving and the best ways to prevent distracted driving. Currently, the main source of distracted driving is cell phones. Cell phones cause a person to text, call, and use social media while driving; all factors that can be a deadly distraction while driving. A cell phone causes much distraction for the driver and may cause the driver to have a car crash that not only affects themselves, but also the surrounding people. As a community, we should be educating people about distracted driving in order to prevent the problem and decrease the number of accidents. Public Service Announcements are important as they provide people with evidence, resources to limit distraction while driving, and helpful/important information. Teenagers, children, and even adults will be able to be informed. Even though educating people through a Public Service Announcement is important, it might not be viewed by most people and will not be effective towards the younger viewers. Teenagers and even adults might dismiss a Public Service Announcement because the announcement does not grab their attention or because the person might not care.

The ad uses logos to give viewers an image or an idea of the consequences of distracted driving in a creative

Texting and driving are activities that separately are indispensable in everyday life, but together represent one of the greatest dangers society faces on a daily basis, from the moment the car starts and transits to the desired destination. It is so easy to look at the phone while driving! Everyone justifies themselves, “it’s just a second”, but everyone also knows, that only takes a second to have a fatal accident. This is why there is the need to raise public awareness and campaigning as in the Public Service Announcement, “Don’t text and drive”, produced and air on TV by News Channel 6 ABC, where the Pathos appeal in the most powerful rhetorical device used in the PSA and Logos and Ethos are also visible, but they are inferred rather than directly enlisted.

Simply putting down your phone and paying attention to the road is a decision that not only could save the life of a driver but could save a whole family and community a whole lot of hurt. At any given time during the day approximately 800,000 people across the United States are on their phone while driving, which explains why texting is the number one distraction for teens across the country (Don’t Text and Drive-Volunteer Society of America). However, we can change this. Educating teens about the true risks of texting and driving just might save a life. Any text can

Texting and driving is more dangerous than it seems, taking your eyes off the road for even a few seconds anything can happen. Many innocent lives have been taken by distracted driving. The Public Service Announcement “Don’t text and drive”, displays a teenage girl driving in the car with some friends. The girl then receives a text from her mother that reads “You know when you’ll be back tonight?” As the girl proceeds to text back she doesn’t realize she begins drifting into the oncoming traffic lane, where a young lady is driving with her two children. Before the two cars collide, time stops and the drivers get out to conversate. Once they get back in time begins to move again and the cars wreck. In the PSA “Don’t text and drive” Produced by TranterGrey Media, pathos stood out over ethos and logos. Pathos is used more effectively element in this video.

This experimental study is being done to better understand the effectiveness of anti-drinking and driving advertisements on university-aged students. “Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among 16 to 25 year olds, and alcohol and/or drugs are a factor in 55% of those crashes” (Madd, 2013). Increasing the effectiveness of anti-drinking and driving advertisements could be a solution to this critically high mortality rate in young people. The main purpose of this study is to better understand the effect of positive and negative anti-drinking and driving advertisements within different settings and different amounts of times.

Every American in the U.S has an addiction of being on a phone while driving. The Public Service Announcement (PSA), “The Danger of Texting & Driving” presents an American teenager texting and driving. This PSA shows and explains what can happen when a person is in a vehicle and on a mobile device. As mentioned previously this video demonstrates what consequences can happen as a result of any American simply looking at his or her phone while driving. However, this short video also can teach and demonstrate why anyone should not get on anything that will cause a distraction to the person who is operating the vehicle. In the PSA, “The Danger of Texting and Driving” filmed by Blue Lobster Productions, the video uses pathos which overshadows both ethos and logos regarding the subject of texting and driving.

Texting and driving was and continues to be one of the major factors of car accidents in America’s population. In the following advertisement named, “Phone in one hand, Ticket in the other” it is noted that texting and driving are frowned upon in our society, and the authorities are giving citizens tickets for texting and driving. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) had created and promoted this ad to help decrease car accidents involving texting and driving, by informing the reader, you will be ticketed if you are caught being on your phone while driving a vehicle. The ad was first campaigned April 2015 by NHTSA. There are two messages being portrayed in this advertisement. First, the text of the ad, gets the audience thinking about two possible consequences of texting and driving. Secondly, the images demonstrate what may take place if you are using a cell phone while on the road. Lastly, both the text and images work together to get the message across that if you are caught texting and driving, you will be ticketed, and the use of a cellular device while driving can lead to a car accident. The, “Phone in one hand, Ticket in the other” ad successfully portrays its reasoning for being invented, and I believe the presence of this ad will decrease the amounts of accidents in America.

With an increasing reliance to cell phone usage in the modern era, there are more potential distractions on the road than ever before. Even with the countless public service announcements urging individuals to not text while driving, there are many people do not take this message seriously. Thus, AT&T has decided to use its influential power and resources to create an advertisement that truly resonates with those who have not heeded the countless previous warnings. The company is making the argument that no post, web search, social media site, etc. is so important that it is worth taking the life of yourself, a loved one, or any innocent bystander.

There were no knowledgeable facts throughout the video expressing the real-world statistics of the death ratio due to texting and driving. Even though the video itself doesn’t provide facts, the description bar evaluates that “over 440,000 people are killed or injured every year by distracted drivers.” This would have been the perfect thing to add into the PSA to back up their reasonings for the production. After experiencing the pathos and ethos of it, seeing the facts in which the video was based off would’ve been helpful in the process of being persuaded not to text and drive. Public Service Announcements should always have reasoning in why they were made and this video did not provide that. The PSA left the viewers to look up the statistics rather than providing

AT&T gains their audiences attention by appealing to the use of logic and emotions throughout the commercial. The commercial is meant to demonstrate the dangers of distracted driving and the possible results. The results are supported by rhetorical devices and strategies. The author communicates the dangers of distracted driving through their use of ethos, logos, and pathos.

The creators of this commercial grasp the hearts and minds of their audience by first bringing out a situation and people who can relate to the common driver, then second exposing them to the extreme consequences of texting and driving, while also setting the mood with appropriate music. By appealing to the emotions of the audience so strategically, the producers carry out an attempt to impact the actions of any drivers who may view their video and change how they view distracted driving in their personal

“In a split second you could ruin your future, injure or kill others, and tear a hole in the heart of everyone who loves you,” (Heit). This specific quote shows how the results of distracted driving not only affects you, but also those around you. Distracted driving has been a serious concern for many years. This subject has been an issue because of the dangers it brings to the safety of others. One major type of distracted driving includes texting and driving. which is becoming more popular in today’s society because many have cell phones. Another type of distracted driving is drinking and driving, this continues to stay a topic for many years. Although drinking and driving and texting and driving carry many similarities with the