Charlatan

The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario has been running these ads on You Tube as well as on air. Apparently there have been a few complaints, especially when one ran during a sporting event on a weekend afternoon (until then they'd only aired late at night).

Regardless of the airtime, how effective do you think these ads are? Some have argued that they do more to desensitize us to violence rather than dealing with the issue.

For me, I think they have a clarity of message that is extremely important.

What do you think?

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ratbastid

Wow, those are really well done. Each one lays out the multi-faceted causes of workplace accidents, including the victim's responsibility. It's not "go after the big irresponsible corporations", in other words.

Very effective. You obviously wouldn't run them during Saturday morning cartoons (are there still cartoons on Saturday mornings?), but I'd say they get the job done.

Psycho Dad

I like them. I've worked in automation and machinery over half my life and I'd rather see something like this that provokes thought, concern and awareness toward safety than the aftermath of carelessness.

Our shop teacher used to show us a film reel of a safety training video called Shake Hands with Danger That film stuck in my head my whole life. It's on youtube now as well. I found it somewhere else a few years ago and showed it to a group of maintenance workers at one of our facilities. I think it made a big impact on their attitudes toward safety.

"Accidents Don't Happen. They are Caused" is not cliché. It is fact.

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Push-Pull

Agreed. As these commercials point out, accidents are usually caused by a number of factors, the most common probably is simply not thinking your actions through. ie., "I knew I shouldn't have reached that far out from the top of the ladder."

I think they are a good reminder. Now if we could just get people to think about them......

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mixedmedia

I think they are very effective.

Don't think I'd like to see them more than once, though. Multiple viewings might even make them less effective...I can imagine.

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Ustwo

They are only 'effective' if they reduce work place accidents.

From what I was taught, the shock value type of things work well when they are first used and then lose their effectiveness after people get desensitized and the shock value is gone.

Really nothing to say unless there is a real study shown that serious work place accidents were reduced as a result.

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Charlatan

Ustwo... that's what I am thinking.

Despite the fact that on first viewing it made an impression, I just wonder about the long term effects if I had to see this over and over.

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Psycho Dad

The shocking part of it is what I think makes it effective. We watched it (Shake Hands with Danger) at least once each semester for two years. As I said. I remember Shake Hands with Danger from high school. And I remember it vividly. And judging by the comments that I've seen when I googled "shake hands with danger", most others who saw it years ago do too.

Of course there may be a huge difference between the impact a film like that makes on young shop students and the general population seeing it on late night TV. And of course we were a captive audience and the instructors did a good job of reinforcing the message.

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ratbastid

I remember when I was in Driver's Ed, watching a video that was OLD--like from the early 60's (this was late 80's). I don't remember much of it, but I have a vivid memory of this one part. A guy was in his car. He parallel parked. From inside the car, we see him open the driver's side door. Then, from outside, we see another car come along and neatly remove the door with its front right bumper. From outside the car, looking up and back into the driver's seat, we see the shocked face of the parked driver who looks aghast, then stares down at his left leg, which he was just about to put in the path of the oncoming car.

analog

I think it's great.

The desensitization to violence isn't something that happens in a single sitting, after being exposed to one 30-second commercial. If people want to whine about violence desensitizing people, their last concern should be 30-second spots in which the violence is not only necessary (as in, it's not violence for the sake of violence) but serves a real purpose in its use.

I also agree that the sense of ownership in the accidents is portrayed well. It's not about the big bad companies, it's about poor decision-making to cut corners, knowing full-well that rules are put in place for exactly those reasons.

snowy

I saw those videos online a while ago; they reminded of the anti-smoking ads run on Canadian television in the early 90s:
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Seems to me that Canadian PSAs are much more shocking than ours. I wonder how effective it really is.

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genuinegirly

Er... well... yeah. They're pretty greusome. Public-awareness about random things like workplace injuries is good. Never thought much about it, myself.

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filtherton

I don't know that they'd be that effective. We had to watch a couple of these for one of my classes this semester before we were eligible to use any of the equipment in the shop. They were pretty gory- it was like watching dawn of the dead at 8 in the morning. Most of my classmates thought the videos were pretty funny, i thought that they were kind of gross- i've always been a bit squeamish when it comes to entertainment.

I don't imagine they were that effective, but that's not really something i have any evidence for. As far as i know, no one got stuck in the rolling machine this semester. That being said, i don't think that carelessness, which is the cause of a lot of accidents like these, is something you can fix with a video.

Infinite_Loser

Something's wrong with me, 'cuz I laughed so hard when I saw most of these.

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Martian

My thoughts exactly. Having worked my fair share of grunt labour jobs, I've sat through a number of videos like this. These spots are set apart by their higher production values, but I don't think they're going to be any more effective for it. The folks who pay attention are probably the ones who are careful and conscientous, meaning they're less likely to cause accidents in the first place.

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blahblah454

Wow, that first one made me cringe really bad, that was gruesome. And that one where the guy got impaled with re-bar... that almost happened at a place I work at, except it would have been truck tires that would have crushed the guy. This is a serious thing as the stats of how often this happens can attest to, a serious and frightening thing. No one takes anything serious anymore.

squeeeb

those commercials are pretty convincing, but would they really change how someone will think? i believe most people looking at that will think "aint gonna happen to me" and keep on doing what they do. most people would realize "i need to clean up that grease i just spilled, someone could get hurt" and do it, whether they saw the commercial or not. the guy who would spill the grease and say "screw it, not my problem" probably won't change his way of thinking just because he saw a commercial.

i work with people who clean up after themselves, and people who leave the work area dirty (no safety risk at all, just an inconvenience). no matter how much we remind people, they still don't clean up after themselves. the inconsiderate ones are inconsiderate not because they haven't been told, or are unaware their actions could affect others, but because that is how they are for whatever reason.

i have a bit of a "lack of faith" in others. while the commercials will remind most people to be aware of what they are doing and be safe, the people who these commercials target wont realize or care that they are as responsible for workplace safety as everyone else is.



i would think they might work at first, but over time, people will get lazy and forget the "message"

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casual user

they're way too over the top. they're exagerrated to the point where they're more humorous than anything else, to me, anyway.

MSD

If there were a camera on when I worked in a garage, I could've make a few bucks selling surveillance footage for this campaign. I'd say that accidents were a 70/30 split between employee idiocy and management idiocy. Whether it was parking the car wrong and leaving a gap where I fell into the pit or insisting that we perform procedures incorrectly, causing injuries and car damage, I'm glad I don't work there anymore.
I guess we're the desensitized ones, then.