Chevrolet Uses April Fools Day Prank of Selfie Steering Wheel to Highlight Safety

This is the age of selfies and in line with this trend, Chevrolet used the idea of a selfie steering wheel to highlight the importance of safety. The concept of the Selfie steering wheel is that you can keep your hands off the camera and on the steering wheel for hassle free selfies.

Chevrolet said that the Selfie Steering Wheel was developed by an expert team at Chevrolet’s Advanced Technology and Innovation Center who attached a hands-free, high-resolution, 4G-equipped camera attached to the steering wheel for flawless selfies while driving.

The adjustable camera is placed in the driver’s line of sight employs eye recognition technology and all you need to do is press while keeping your eyes on the road and your hands on the steering. Even sharing the images on social media is easy as the images are automatically uploaded to popular photo sharing apps with support from a voice recognition system that drivers can use to dictate a caption for the selfie.

Chevrolet used this opportunity to highlight the need for safe driving and to launch its AlertTags road safety campaign.

The use of mobile phones is the top cause of accidents behind the wheel. As many as 74 per cent of people use their phone while driving, and over 50 per cent of car accidents are caused by drivers distracted by their mobiles devices.
The hashtag ‘whiledriving’ hashtag has become increasingly popular on social media platforms and highlights a worrying trend of users posting photos and videos taken while at the wheel.

Chevrolet Middle East developed the pre-emptive AlertTags campaign as part of its social responsibility towards the driving community to discourage such behavior and promote change in individual behavior. Harnessing the power of social media to turn the ‘whiledriving’ hashtag trend on its head, the brand is taking over Instagram with a collection of hashtags designed to inspire safer driving habits.

By flooding the platform with alternative hashtags like #whiledrivingkills and #whiledrivingisdangerous, Chevrolet’s AlertTags posts are meant to spread the message of safe driving far and wide. Directly engaging with offenders, AlertTags is driving the use of this dangerous hashtag further down Instagram’s automated hashtag suggestion list every day. So the next time someone in the driver seat starts to type ‘whiledriving’, they will be flooded with reminders to keep both hands on the wheel and eyes on the road.

Molly Peck, Chief Marketing Officer at General Motors Middle East, said that safety is engrained in the Chevrolet DNA. She said that Chevrolet is dedicated to encouraging safe driving habits by employing innovative vehicle technologies and road safety initiatives like AlertTags.

She continued: “The AlertTags idea was one that our entire Chevrolet team could immediately get behind as its mechanics make room for a direct conversation with reckless offenders. Targeting ‘whiledriving’ users at the exact moment they are posting irresponsibly, our AlertTags messages are helping create safer roads and reduce the number of accidents caused by distracted driving. We hope communities join in to help us transform the conversation – if AlertTags can save just one life, the campaign will have been a success.”

The more popular the Chevrolet AlertTags become, they will get greater visibility across social media and reach a bigger audience in this region and even beyond. Chevrolet Middle East is using this novel road safety campaign to bring the number of road fatalities down every day.

Motorists can show their support for the cause of responsible driving by posting tags like #whiledrivingkills, #whiledrivingisdangerous, #whiledrivingisnogood on Instagram to help the brand drive safety messages to the top of the platform’s autocomplete function.