Flash Driving Game
- Brand
- New Zealand Transport Agency
- Year
- 2012
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Other
- Mechanic
- Racing & Sports
- Platform
- Social
- With
- Resn
Objective
NZTA needed to cut speeding among young drivers, especially young men, who knew intellectually that speed kills but didn't believe it could happen to them, and who carried a gaming habit of "crash and restart" onto real roads. The brief wasn't to reach this audience with another safety film — it was to make them feel what dying from speed actually feels like, and break the risk-without-consequence logic games had taught them.
Solution
Players find flashdrivinggame.com advertised as an ordinary browser racer, log in with Facebook "to personalize the game," and take the wheel of a 3D car on a dubstep-scored track, driving through gates to rack up points. The faster they push it, the harder the car is to control, and within a lap or two a crash becomes unavoidable — the car spins out and slams. Instead of the expected "play again" screen, faces start flashing before the player's eyes: photos pulled straight from their own Facebook — parents, friends, the people they actually know. The screen fades to black, "You only get one life. Slow down." appears, and the game won't restart — one attempt, exactly like on the road.
Results
41,000 people played the game, 50% above NZTA's expected count, and the campaign period saw the largest reduction in New Zealand's average driving speed in five years, with the share of vehicles exceeding the speed limit dropping 6%.
- 1
The player lands on flashdrivinggame.com, which presents itself as a straightforward arcade racing game with console-style 3D visuals and a dubstep soundtrack.
- 2
Before the race starts, the player is asked to log in with Facebook and grant access to their account, with no explanation given for why.
- 3
The player drives a race from a first-person viewpoint, scoring points by steering the car through gates on the track as it accelerates and becomes progressively harder to control.
- 4
After roughly a minute, the car spins out and crashes at high speed in an accident the player cannot avoid.
- 5
Instead of a game-over screen, photos of the player's own friends and family, pulled from their Facebook account, fade in and out across a cracked, windshield-like display until the screen goes black.
- 6
A closing line appears on the black screen: "You only get one life. Slow down."
- 7
There is no option to play again: the game permanently ends after this single crash, leaving telling others about it as the only way the experience continues.
