SGI launches new campaign against impaired driving

If you killed someone while driving impaired, could you live with the guilt?

That’s the question SGI is asking in its new ad campaign.

“Could you survive a collision? Perhaps. Could you live with yourself if you killed someone else, but you survived? Well, let’s all hope you never have to find out,” the narrator reads in one of the ads.

This is a new angle for SGI. The majority of its anti-impaired driving ads focus on the direct impact to the victims and their families.

Linda Van de Vorst, who lost her son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren to a drunk driver, also is featured in the campaign.

During a news conference Thursday, she said the new angle might help open more people’s eyes on the issue.

“I think individuals really do not realize the impact their decisions have on their family, on their friends and on their co-workers,” she said. “They have no idea how life changes in a split second when you make a decision … to drive impaired, and you take the lives of other families or individuals.

“How does your family go on, knowing that they have someone who they love who has just destroyed the closeness (the victims) had? I’m hoping that this ad will have an impact for everyone to think twice before you go out and drive.”

Her husband, Lou, agrees the shift in perspective could hit home for some people.

“(It will help) if people aren’t thinking about just random strangers they may affect in life … because our family was strangers to the person who drove that car that killed our son and his family …,” he said. “At least think about your loved ones when you have to make a choice.

“Do you want to rip up your family life or cause hurt in your family because of an irresponsible decision? That’s what this ad will hopefully cause people to think.”

The campaign is running for the month of February. Including production and the media buy, it cost SGI $712,000.

There will be ads on radio and television and in newspapers. There will also be billboards and posters.