Brilliant road safety ad drives the internet wild

We've seen plenty of brilliant print ads over the year, most often relying on humour to make the viewer double-take. But every now again we see something that's both ingenious and deadly serious – which is exactly the case with these road safety ads.

Currently going wild on Reddit, the ads depict close-up shots of people wearing seatbelts. Adorning their chests is their date of birth and, presumably, death – with the latter covered by the seatbelt. Because it saved their life, of course! (Looking for more inspiration? Check out the best print ads of all time.)

The brilliantly simple ad is currently top of Reddit's r/DesignPorn page, with over 50,000 upvotes. "Took me a sec. Great job," one user comments, while another adds, "It’s so good. Took a moment, but once I realised the message, just brilliance." According to adsoftheworld, the campaign was created for Quebec Automobile Insurance Society by creative agency lg2 in 2012.

We do, of course, have a couple of questions. Firstly, who goes around wearing their date of birth on a t-shirt? Also judging by the slight glimpse we have of the supposed year of death, if I were these people, I'd be pretty worried every time a year ending in 2 came around.

Still, we're nitpicking – this is one of the cleverest print ads we've seen recently. Indeed, it seems road safety posters are where some of the most ingenious concepts are to be found, like this brilliant ad discouraging drivers from texting on the road.

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