Undertaker Digs Deep Into Students Hearts

An undertaker was part of a group giving talks on road safety to over 1000 pupils in Castlebar, Co Mayo today.

Some students dropped like flys as they heard some chilling messages.
David McGowan was accompanied by a garda, members of the emergency services and a family member of a person who died in a road accident.

Mr McGowan said he did not wish to frighten people with talk of funerals, but he wanted them to be on their guard when using the roads.

"I want to instil in people before they get into a car with a speeder driver, or someone who may be under the influence, or have taken drugs, to stop and think because you have all this trauma and devastation that you bring on your family and on the whole community (if there is an accident)," he said.

Shock Tactics To Teach Students That Speed Kills

Over 1,000 Co. Mayo transition year students attended the hard-hitting road safety event where the tragic consequences of dangerous driving will be graphically illustrated.

Graphic crash imagery will be used to tell the story of how a night out ended in tragedy and permanent disability for one young driver at the AXA road safety road show - in the TF Royal Hotel, Castlebar
the tragic consequences of dangerous driving will be graphically illustrated.

The students will hear first hand accounts from the family member of a deceased road traffic accident victim, as well as a car crash survivor, An Garda Síochána, a funeral undertaker , the Ambulance Service, Fire Service, and a Consultant base at the A&E Department of Mayo General Hospital, Castlebar.

The AXA road safety road show - in the TF Royal Hotel, Castlebar - will also use live performance, reconstructed crash sites, video, and shock tactics to teach teens not to become another statistic.

Noel Gibbons, Road Safety Officer with Mayo County Council, said shock tactics are necessary and what really gets through to young people in the highest risk group. "I have no doubt that the roadshow shocks our young audience and we think that's necessary to show them the perils of driving dangerously," he said.
With the recent increase of farm deaths , students will also be told of the dangers when using tractors by officials from the IFA.

"Nicolas is about to have an accident. He will die in a few minutes."
Agency La Chose Group took a slightly different route in dramatizing the impact a collision can have on the people involved in a new spot for France's DSCR (the Road Circulation Security Delegation). Directed by Bruno Aveillan, "Shockwave" takes us past the victims of the crash, Nicolas and Sophie, and introduces us to the ones left unseen.
The work makes elegant use of slow motion to extend the crunch of metal and cascade of glass to a length that transforms an unlucky instant into a macabre ballet. But instead of focusing on the drama of the moment, the people you see flying through the debris, faces contorted in anguish, are not Nicolas and Sophie at all-they're the loved ones who will be hurt by the crash for years afterward.

To watch this effective if shocking video or click play below.

You likely gathered from the top of this post that Nicolas does not make out well, but Sophie doesn't walk away unscathed. She literally can't. "Sophie is meeting her boyfriend. She will wake up in a hospital bed ... but her legs won't," the narrator says.

Once the fates of this pair are defined, the kaleidoscope of living casualties begins to turn. "Nicolas's father will be the first to hear about his son's death. He will not smile again." The ad goes on to describe the heartbreaking reaction of his grandfather and his wife: The pregnant, anguished woman glides across the screen, surrounded by a menagerie of glass.

As for poor Sophie? Her father "will sacrifice everything to make her walk again. Her mother will be haunted by the memory of her first steps." You'll also learn that her boyfriend will eventually propose, but that she will refuse ... out of love.

For those of you who know-and have been inspired by-a paraplegic in your life, the tone here can almost ring self-pityingly tragic; she did, after all, get the better end of this star-crossed deal. But all this is told in service of a point we don't always consider when buckling up at day's end: "Between each victim of a car crash, there are victims of life. Road safety. All affected. All concerned. All responsible."

"Campaigns with alarming and shocking images have worked very well in the past, but today that's not enough,". "Their idea is to show that behind every crash victim there are victims in life. ... Because it's symbolic of the accident that could happen to any of us. No one is at fault; it's a 'real' story that we can relate to."