Grisly Don't-Text-and-Drive Ad Comes to US

A blood-soaked UK ad warning of the consequences of driving while texting has made its way stateside, albeit in a highly edited form. The original ad clocks in at four minutes, showing in slow, excruciating detail the results of a fictionalized three-car crash. There's a lot of blood, dead teenagers, dead adults, even a dead baby.

Now the American Automobile Association has bought the ad, reports the Hollywood Reporter, cut it to 30 seconds, and spent the better part of a year fighting for permission to air it. “It's graphic,” says one official, “but we know that using such images can make a difference.” Made by a police department in Wales, it went viral on YouTube last year. Now it's airing on 13 stations in North Carolina, after 9pm.
(More distracted driving stories.)