Ad at Simpsons Movie Reminds Drivers to Slow Down

If you were one of the throng of metro Atlanta film-goers who like others ravenous fans converged on 3,922 screens nationwide to help fuel "The Simpsons Movie" to a $71.9 million, number one box-office score this past weekend (source: Media by Numbers), during the previews you may have also witnessed an unsettling anti-speeding ad simultaneously released by PEDS, an Atlanta advocacy group committed to ensuring the safety of pedestrians.

Launched on nearly 200 metro Atlanta movie screens, the PEDS ad campaign is a jarring, hard-hitting reminder to movie-goers how life in a neighborhood can change in an instant, at just a tragic extra five to ten miles per hour.

Funded by the Governor's Office of Highway Safety, the ad's message and delivery is so graphic, it has been relegated to PG-13 and R-rated screens only.

Not to be spoiled here, one can only experience the ad at the movies, or on the PEDS website, where after a sufficient run in the theaters the organization will make the spot viewable online.

Though the group's headquarters are located in downtown Atlanta's pedestrian-friendly Fairlie-Poplar district, PEDS has a presence that is felt metro-wide. Driving through any number of more than 100 neighborhoods you may have encountered one of 3,000 installed PEDS "Slow Down" yard signs that attempt to serve as a speeding deterrent.

PEDS has made significant strides in creating awareness around pedestrian safety, but its advocacy members are keenly aware that their work is far from done. Consider the fact that with PEDS' given statistics, metro Atlanta drivers hit four pedestrians every day, and when hit at 20mph, 95% of pedestrians survive, whereas when hit at 30 mph, about half are killed.

Those ten miles per hour make a fatal difference, and it is the hope of PEDS that through running this new anti-speeding ad in movie theaters, the message will hit home to greater numbers, reducing the driver apathy and complacency that seems to run rampantly among harried and distracted Atlantans behind the wheel.