South Dakota Yanks ‘Don’t Jerk and Drive’ Campaign

In of course the higher-ups are going to ruin a good thing news, a South Dakota highway safety campaign has been yanked after it went viral last week. As you may have heard, the South Dakota Office of...
South Dakota Yanks ‘Don’t Jerk and Drive’ Campaign
Written by Josh Wolford
  • In of course the higher-ups are going to ruin a good thing news, a South Dakota highway safety campaign has been yanked after it went viral last week.

    As you may have heard, the South Dakota Office of Highway Safety decided to go full double-entendre with their new winter weather safe driving campaign, #DontJerkAndDrive. Jerking isn’t a joke, they said, Nobody likes a jerker, they said. The true message behind the campaign was to refrain from jerking the wheel when your car hits a slick spot, but the joke was pretty clear.

    And it didn’t sit well with some inside the state’s governmental agencies.

    It turns out that the innuendo was most definitely intentional (duh) – and that didn’t fly with everyone in the state. From the Argus Leader:

    “The message is that we’d prefer drivers keep their cars out of the ditch and their minds out of the gutter,” said Lee Axdahl, director of the office of Highway Safety.

    But the language didn’t play well with some South Dakotans, and now the state has pulled back.

    “I decided to pull the ad,” said Trevor Jones, the secretary of the Department of Public Safety — and Axdahl’s boss — in a statement. “This is an important safety message and I don’t want this innuendo to distract from our goal to save lives on the road.”

    Apparently, the campaign had really pissed off some state lawmakers – one of which called it a “terrible error in judgment”.

    I’m going to have to disagree with you, boss man. Not only did it bring national attention to your state’s campaign, but it was an undeniably smart campaign at its core. How the hell are you supposed to make anyone care about a public safety campaign without adding a masturbation joke?

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