Funny Dummies Dumped

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 28, 1999 / 9:13 AM EST / CBS

According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, about 40,000 people die every year in automobile crashes. As many as half of them could have survived if they had been wearing seatbelts.

In the next four to six weeks, new public service ads will be introduced that show actors portraying people in car crash situations. The campaign will replace the humorous commercials that crash test dummies Vince and Larry have appeared in since 1985.

Ruth Wooden, president and CEO of The Advertising Council, a non-profit agency that develops public service campaigns, told CBS This Morning Co-Anchor Jane Robelot that the crash test dummies were successful in getting more Americans to wear seatbelts.

However, seatbelt use has been level for the past few years. "They were a victim of their own success," Wooden says. "The rate of use has plateaued."

So, Vince and Larry are being retired in favor of a new campaign that targets the last hold-outs on seatbelt use, young adults and, in particular, young men. "Research shows they have a false sense of security. They think that they are good drivers...and don't think it's important to wear seatbelts on a short trip to the mall," Wooden says.

The new ads will show young men becoming involved through no fault of their own in terrible crashes, with results which would have been mitigated by wearing seatbelts.

The idea, says Wooden, is to shake the notion of security. "We didn't want to leave them any excuse not to wear a seatbelt," she says.

The ads were inspired in part by the success of a campaign in Australia.