[phamilyman]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Of course the youngsters want to show their friends, and especially their ladyfriends, that they can do all that stuff. It's pretty natural for youngsters to behave that way. They may even challenge each other.

Youth is fairly stupid in many ways. Haven't we all been there? Doesn't that apply to us? and if you, dear reader, happen to be the exception, well fair enough, but most people are not exceptions.

Thad,

Sorry but this post is just not based in any facts. Do you have any data behind the sweeping generalizations in your post? Talking about youth being fairly stupid does not in any way support that even a statistically significant (forget a majority of them) group of youngsters ape such motorbike ads.

We have well over a decade of such stupid ads say when the Bajaj Pulsar DTSi ad showed someone riding on a dam etc. Pick the ad which offended you most and tell us - How many incidents actually happened? Is that a statistically significant number? Is there any basis to say the underlined text in your post? Any?

Noop,

Interesting. I wouldn't have anticipated such a quick response. While I'm morally opposed to the censorship idea, I'm all for a responsive self-regulator. Hooray for ASCI!

[bblost]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Of course the youngsters want to show their friends, and especially their ladyfriends, that they can do all that stuff. It's pretty natural for youngsters to behave that way. They may even challenge each other.

Youth is fairly stupid in many ways. Haven't we all been there? Doesn't that apply to us? and if you, dear reader, happen to be the exception, well fair enough, but most people are not exceptions.

Originally Posted by bblost

used to ride fast, was not expected to survive adolescence.

I wrote that in 2007 in my intro thread.

Thad E Ginathom, I know exactly what you mean by stupidity of youth. Been there and kissed the tarmac.

I owe a lot to a couple of biker friends who literally adopted me as a younger brother in 2003, when I came to Hyderabad and bought my Thunderbird.

Then team-bhp that really helped me understand safe practices.

Unfortunately this does not happen with a lot of young men. Just read the newspaper. At least one dead biker every day.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by phamilyman

Sorry but this post is just not based in any facts. Do you have any data behind the sweeping generalizations in your post? Talking about youth being fairly stupid does not in any way support that even a statistically significant (forget a majority of them) group of youngsters ape such motorbike ads.

It is based on life experiences, could be his own. It can't be Googled.

I understand you are the type of person who calculates the risk of everything before taking any action. But there are lots of people who act purely on emotions or peer pressure. Such people come to senses only in their 30s and 40s, since they can only learn from own experience. I have had many friends like that. Even I cringe at some of the stupid things I have done in my youth. And NO... I am not going to list them out in public. I am not that stupid anyone.

[saket77]

Originally Posted by Sheel

The beauty of Team-BHP is, we can always speak what we feel right and take the name of any manufacturer which has erred without any fear as Team-BHP isn't obliged to any. (As long as stats and data prove it)

Of course Sheel. Just that I thought just to pin point the irresponsible actions shown in the ad rather than the manufacturer. And I have always been vocal against all companies which do not treat the customer right. TBHP does stand apart from the rest in that way.

Originally Posted by Sheel

I can't recall which. In case you recall the make/manufacturer, please do share and share it freely

Please see the bold part. I will try to get the ads from Youtube. Most are off-air now.

Originally Posted by saket77

dangerous overtaking: Bajaj Discover.


stunts by riders like wheelies, burn-outs among others: Bajaj Pulsar.

Long ago, a famous car brand had an ad in the print media which almost promoted rash driving because their cars had many safety features in-built!: Honda India.

[phamilyman]

Originally Posted by Samurai

It is based on life experiences, could be his own. It can't be Googled.

I understand you are the type of person who calculates the risk of everything before taking any action. But there are lots of people who act purely on emotions or peer pressure. Such people come to senses only in their 30s and 40s, since they can only learn from own experience. I have had many friends like that. Even I cringe at some of the stupid things I have done in my youth. And NO... I am not going to list them out in public. I am not that stupid anyone.

Hehe.

I agree on the principle that youth can often be immature but I am certain TV ads don't spark copycat stunts by the majority.

As for what I've seen - I have never even attempted to pull a wheelie or stoppie or anything else in my life, whether in the teens or the 20s or now in the mid 30s. Nothing I saw on TV influenced me to do anything like that - or of many other bikers I have had the privilege of knowing personally.

Even when I used to hang a lot at biker G2Gs a decade back (2004-2008), I almost never heard anyone say "did you look at that ad? let's do it". Mind you, there was always a sizeable minority of stunters at such G2Gs, pulling wheelies just to show off to each other, but copycat stunts - I didn't see that. Certainly not by the majority of youth. Of course, Dhoom inspired a lot of bikers to buy faster bikes and glamorized stunting etc - but it was already happening before that only. It is another matter that the media assumes often paints any rash riding by youth as dhoom style rides.

The big risk is what TeG mentioned on the side - of youth aping each other or competing with each other. That is the big risk among youth - but banning ads doesn't solve this real issue one bit. Only strict policing solves that issue.

[interest]

Originally Posted by phamilyman

Thad,

Sorry but this post is just not based in any facts. Do you have any data behind the sweeping generalizations in your post? Talking about youth being fairly stupid does not in any way support that even a statistically significant (forget a majority of them) group of youngsters ape such motorbike ads.

Originally Posted by phamilyman

Hehe.

I agree on the principle that youth can often be immature but I am certain TV ads don't spark copycat stunts by the majority.

As for what I've seen - I have never even attempted to pull a wheelie or stoppie or anything else in my life, whether in the teens or the 20s or now in the mid 30s. Nothing I saw on TV influenced me to do anything like that - or of many other bikers I have had the privilege of knowing personally.



The big risk is what TeG mentioned on the side - of youth aping each other or competing with each other. That is the big risk among youth - but banning ads doesn't solve this real issue one bit. Only strict policing solves that issue.

Talking of statistics, I think you should not take yourself as a point of reference and generalise it to the entire world of bike riders either. Often in this thread people have mentioned that there are smart riders and idiots on streets. Smart riders would not be influenced by such ads/ stunts in movies/ stunts in circus. They would exercise all caution since they have enough grey matter to understand the danger. But there are others who are not as blessed in the "grey matter" department as may be you are. It is this set of people who are likely to get influenced by such vidoes/movies.

Whether there is a direct correlation between such videos and accidents on roads or not, why portray something which is illegal and dangerous as stylish and cool?

In movies we USUALLY show that it is the Villians that display a wanton disregard for law and order (in civil life and on streets). A hero USUALLY resorts to such things only in exceptional circumstances and for a greater good (may be to save someone's life). So in my opinion movies also do their part in NOT glorifying such deeds.

I agree with you that strict policing will be a good solution. Although, lets also recognise that there are both active and passive ways to solve a problem and somtimes both these ways need to work in conjuction to eliminate the menace. Strict policing being the active way and not showing such videos that glorify dangerous stunts being the passive way.

[joybhowmik]

One of the things ad-makers and manufacturers do, when they show these irresponsible ads, is to send a message, that if the product is good enough for doing the things we are showing here - then it has to be good for your application.
I agree with the point of view of most here, that , this is not the message that gets through to the general masses. Perhaps the advertisers can take a point from that. Other than that, I feel that showing real life customers in real life situations is probably more convincing an argument than trying to show something artificial.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by phamilyman

As for what I've seen - I have never even attempted to pull a wheelie or stoppie or anything else in my life, whether in the teens or the 20s or now in the mid 30s. Nothing I saw on TV influenced me to do anything like that - or of many other bikers I have had the privilege of knowing personally.

You should not be basing this on your life experience. Considering your IIT-IIM background, you must have been a serious & mature individual right from your early teens. I on the other hand was not even eligible for applying for government jobs when I graduated. I was lucky to clear BE in just 4 years. I got serious only after that.

Originally Posted by phamilyman

Even when I used to hang a lot at biker G2Gs a decade back (2004-2008), I almost never heard anyone say "did you look at that ad? let's do it". Mind you, there was always a sizeable minority of stunters at such G2Gs, pulling wheelies just to show off to each other, but copycat stunts - I didn't see that.

You moved around with like-minded people. In college, I had friends who extended their services to ad-hoc collection agencies due to peer-pressure. I too was invited once to join that fun activity because of my martial skills, but I had enough sense to refuse the offer.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by phamilyman

Hehe.

I agree on the principle that youth can often be immature but I am certain TV ads don't spark copycat stunts by the majority..

Every day less than 10% of the people on Indian roads are involved in accidents. So we can safely say, since the majority of drivers are not involved in accidents in India, road safety is not an issue.

Do not forget, kids and adolescents have died trying to imitate superhero stunts. As Sharath said, you are less than 0.001% of the population due to your IIT-IIM background. So your life experience is totally irrelevant in any discussion in India

[pratyush6]

First things first, I was absolutely appalled by this ad. Good that someone started a thread for this. There are ads which are bad in taste, irritating but this simply was appalling. Nothing in the recent times has worked me up so much.

I find a lot of our members making generalizations about the youngsters in the country. Let's not think the guy in his early 20's is a fool, he is not. But then to say that none of them would try to pull something off watching this on TV, is also rather over optimistic.
I vividly remember once being behind a bike and this guy trying to show off wanted to pull a stunt. It went horribly wrong and we by some luck got saved. I gave him a big piece of my mind and swore never to ride pillion with such riders. So there are people who try foolish things, lets not give them one more.
Next, in this day and age of the internet, nothing is inaccessible - so how much banning an ad would help is debatable.

In the end all that matters is how much do you use that top floor of yours!

[phamilyman]

Interest - good we agree on the policing point!

Originally Posted by interest

Talking of statistics, I think you should not take yourself as a point of reference and generalise it to the entire world of bike riders either. Often in this thread people have mentioned that there are smart riders and idiots on streets. Smart riders would not be influenced by such ads/ stunts in movies/ stunts in circus. They would exercise all caution since they have enough grey matter to understand the danger. But there are others who are not as blessed in the "grey matter" department as may be you are. It is this set of people who are likely to get influenced by such vidoes/movies.

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Every day less than 10% of the people on Indian roads are involved in accidents. So we can safely say, since the majority of drivers are not involved in accidents in India, road safety is not an issue.

Do not forget, kids and adolescents have died trying to imitate superhero stunts. As Sharath said, you are less than 0.001% of the population due to your IIT-IIM background. So your life experience is totally irrelevant in any discussion in India

Originally Posted by Samurai

You should not be basing this on your life experience. Considering your IIT-IIM background, you must have been a serious & mature individual right from your early teens. I on the other hand was not even eligible for applying for government jobs when I graduated. I was lucky to clear BE in just 4 years. I got serious only after that.

You moved around with like-minded people. In college, I had friends who extended their services to ad-hoc collection agencies due to peer-pressure. I too was invited once to join that fun activity because of my martial skills, but I had enough sense to refuse the offer.

Its a bit more subtle than that. My college biking club is anyways not in the consideration set - since I knew the likely objections to that data set!

However, at the same time, I interacted with a large number of local chaps, either from xbhp / gujarat bullets club / bikenomads. even in large gatherings such as xbhp g2gs in delhi, junta were more sensible than is portrayed on this thread, and stunting was limited to a minority, and even there, there were hardly any copycat stunts. Of course, you could see a few folks riding rash but that was more youngsters racing with each other and trying to outdo each other and not because they saw the latest Pulsar ad.

Its a fairly tenuous link from youth are impressionable or careless to saying that irresponsible ads cause accidents with a majority of youth. That's all.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by phamilyman

Thad,

Sorry but this post is just not based in any facts. Do you have any data behind the sweeping generalizations in your post? Talking about youth being fairly stupid does not in any way support that even a statistically significant (forget a majority of them) group of youngsters ape such motorbike ads.

Others have got there before me

Originally Posted by bblost

I wrote that in 2007 in my intro thread.

Thad E Ginathom, I know exactly what you mean by stupidity of youth. Been there and kissed the tarmac.

Originally Posted by Samurai

It is based on life experiences, could be his own. It can't be Googled.

... ... ...

And NO... I am not going to list them out in public. I am not that stupid anyone.

Me neither! Most of my stupidity did not involve motor vehicles, largely due to lack of opportunity. Whilst it would not have been my nature to be a daredevil with them, one can still be pretty stupid without even trying. My dad was a great teacher, very calm, and I can't forget the day he asked me, "Have you glanced at the sppedometer recently?" No, I had no clue I was going so fast.

Originally Posted by phamilyman

Hehe.

I agree on the principle that youth can often be immature but I am certain TV ads don't spark copycat stunts by the majority.

Youth is born ignorant: if we were not, there would be no need for education of any kind. It is also in the nature of youth, from the moment of birth, to push against boundaries and restrictions. This is life, I believe it is the reality of life (and to some extent I believe it is sad that a lot of it gets knocked out of us!)

This is not a matter of the majority. a minority is enough. I am trying to avoid the if it saves the life of one child kind of argument, which is often silly, but there are things in life like firearms, motor vehicles, lethal poisons, etc that seem to me to require better than the kind of crap we see in adverts (and films, and "lifestyle" press photos, etc etc etc).

Road safety in India is, to my mind, and extra-special case where every possible avenue should be taken to improve an utterly dismal situation.

I find it hard to understand how Team-BHP members (apart from the few "It's my life, don't tell me what risks I can and can't take with it" guys) can disagree?

Nothing, anywhere in the world, gets done without education, and sometimes by law enforcement. I lived through the outcry in my mother country about the terrible infringements of liberty of seat belts and, shock horror, drink driving. Yes, there really were outcries, but now the vast majority just accept these things, even sometimes imposing greater restrictions on themselves than the law requires.

Looking on the bright side, at least the guy in the ad is wearing a helmet!

[basuroy]

If I may chip in with my observations , I am 23 now and back in college over the course of 4 years , there were close to 2 dozen deaths(all from my university ) involving automobile accident with 20 or so being motorcycle and the rest cars - Not in a single case the cause was stunting or even racing , in every single case (bar 3-4 which were outcome of bad road/rash riding ), the cause was alcohol . Racing / stunting was almost non existent , drinking - 7 nights a week :/

And while I won't dismiss the notion that a chap will want to show off especially to his girl friend ( I am yet to meet a girl my age who asked me to ride or drive faster , to the contrary the slightest hint of speeding is always met with a "please ride carefully" , my mom - "watch out caaaar" ) , my observation was and still is that the rider tends to be over cautious with a pillion on board . There are idiots out there too , even if there was no such ad on TV , said riders will still throttle hard from dead still on a light motorbike , pop a wheelie and then discover the "secret" to doing it anywhere and everywhere .

It is very common in india that young boys ride 2 wheeler on busy street , sometimes as young as 13-14 and irrespective of whether they are on a scooty bike or cycle , their natural tendency is to go overboard and that is a recipe for disaster because their is a higher probability of erratic riding from this age group than any else.

[joe_antony]

I remember pulsar used to have ads with the extreme stunts. They were really good. The stunters will have full gear and perform it on a race track and there will be a statutory warning prior to that ad. This Xtreme ad is quite disturbing.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by basuroy

... ... ... my observation was and still is that the rider tends to be over cautious with a pillion on board . There are idiots out there too , even if there was no such ad on TV , said riders will still throttle hard from dead still on a light motorbike , pop a wheelie and then discover the "secret" to doing it anywhere and everywhere .

My observation is that the number of passengers makes little difference, and that many of those who are doing the weaving, leaning, perhaps exciting, kind of driving, have a young woman, perhaps not yet married, holding tightly from behind (Am I jealous? That's another story!). A lot of others, whilst not appearing flamboyant, are still risking the lives of family from grandmother to baby.

It may not even be to impress, but I fear that watchers confuse the ability of the bike with the ability of the driver, and may assume that such tricks are easier and safer than they are.