Super high-speed Bentley in Northern Territory drives foul of advertising standards

[Express]

Super high-speed Bentley in Northern Territory drives foul of advertising standards

30 June, 2016

Matt O'Sullivan



See link below for video



Bentley ad pulled after complaint

Luxury car maker Bentley pull an ad filmed on the Stuart Highway after a man complained it promoted unsafe driving and speeding.

An ad featuring Australian racing legend John Bowe driving a $428,000 Bentley at up to 330 kilometres an hour on a highway in the Northern Territory has run foul of advertising standards.

The online ad showcased the two-time Bathurst 1000 champion driving the Bentley Continental GT Speed on the Stuart Highway, which has an open limit between Alice Springs and the Ali Curung rail overpass.

It focused on the speed the prestige car could reach and included shots of its speedometer, which by the end of the ad reached 330km an hour.


Racing legend John Bowe drove a Bentley Continental GT Speed in the ad. Photo: Supplied


A disclaimer at the beginning of the ad noted that Bowe drove in "controlled circumstances" and the car was "thoroughly checked before the run".

However, the Advertising Standards Bureau found the ad breached the motor vehicle industry's advertising code of practice because it portrayed someone driving in excess of speed limits in most of Australia where it was broadcast.

While a long section of the Stuart Highway in the Northern Territory has an open limit, the bureau said that in all other parts of Australia the speed depicted in the ad would have breached the law.

Harold Scruby, the chairman of the Pedestrian Council who lodged the complaint, welcomed the decision as he believed the ad glorified speed and showed "incredibly dangerous" behaviour.

"Speed is the biggest killer on our roads. You only have to have a kangaroo hop out in front of you and you are dead," he said.

"Every other state in Australia has a maximum speed of 110. This is the only place in the world where unrestricted speed is allowed on undivided roads and without hard shoulders."

Bentley told the Advertising Standards Bureau that it would remove the ad from its YouTube channel.

The car maker said the Northern Territory government had helped in closing a section of the Stuart Highway for the filming of the ad.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/super-high...29-gpujjj.html

[Simple6]

Scruby...'sigh'

[Mercury Bullet]

Thanks for the ad Bentley, now I know which is the better car to drive on the open NT highways.

Harold Scruby, sounds like an apt name for the complainant.
I wonder if Harold realises the further north you go the smaller the kangaroos get?

What the hell has happened to the Australia I was raised in????

[Express]

Originally Posted by Mercury Bullet

What the hell has happened to the Australia I was raised in????

Apathy

[Crazy Dazz]

Scruby is nothing but your classic Malcontent. His first big effort was trying to replace the Australian Flag with something that looked like a beach-towel.
Oxygen Thief.

[cheap]

Harold Scruby has a selfie webpage, fascinating reading about his time with nestle, the fashion industry and the overwhelmingly important textile foot ware and clothing industry. Seems he is also promoting himself as patron saint for walking.

http://www.scruby.com.au

[TUF_302]

Who called the fun police again!

[2011G6E]

The laws state clearly that car advertising in Australia (on TV) cannot in any way appear to be condoning or supporting "competition" or speed or furious driving.
Which is why the stunning advert for the Peugeot 208GTi was only showed in cinemas...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtyhFkvHSyg

Or why the similarly excellent advert from 2004 showing the AWD Magna being pitted against a Falcon and a Commodore on a dirt road, showing the advantages of AWD. However it was "furious driving" and looked far too much like "competition"...so it was dropped after ab out a month. I mean love the Magna or hate it (and the AWD Magna could have been so much more with a decent engine, maybe a turbo) it was a great advert.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCpVZB898eI

Or from the USA (where they obviously have no such issues), how about the Dodge advert...now this is how you advertise cars and show the companies history with a bit of fun...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oicu39lda0E

Fun police to the rescue...can't have any sporty looking driving in adverts...

Scumby (not a misprint) has one goal in life...to make everyone see walking as the only form of acceptable transport.

[TheInterceptor]

This is probably why all car ads are rubbish these days.

Except the fact that we all know there is a war on all motorists in Australia so anything that helps GovCo's case. I thought only communists restricted what gets seen by mass public? Then again this isnt a democracy anyway.


Good on Bentley. Would have been fun to film!

[simon varley]

so mister Scumby, exactly how many people have died or been seriously injured on the roads that NT is trialling the unlimited speed on?

[Simple6]

Originally Posted by simon varley

so mister Scumby, exactly how many people have died or been seriously injured on the roads that NT is trialling the unlimited speed on?

I know you probably know the answer, but for others reading - zero people have died. I can't think of anyone seriously injured, but that data isn't publicly reported or released.

The de-restricted zone has not contributed to the road toll at all in the 2.5 years it's been back, yet it's often debated by 'experts' because it's an easy & lazy target. How about tackle a difficult road safety topic like our major centres where majority of people die....too hard.

Anyway, I'm sliding off topic here, but I spent a lot of time a while back going through the public stats because I was sick of hearing that section of road blamed for road deaths. Unfortunately we're also due for an election here and I suspect if the other party gain government, then this little slice of freedom will be taken away in the interest of 'safety'. Scruby will be excited.

[malazn mafia]

Fork you Harold Screwball. Complete utter waste of air. Is he the same guy who caused the supercar scare in the 70s? Hope he gets run over by a cyclist and ends up in a wheelchair and starts the wheelchair council, campaigning against cyclists instead.

[Madaya]

Calm down MM, but we are on the same page. As some of you know, I did the big lap around Oz in 2014. Hit the NT and suddenly the speed jumps from 110 to 130, heading to Darwin. I ramped up to 130 for a spell, car was solid on the road, left and right, any Roo's, cattle, Emu's would be visible from a mile. btw, the Highways are in good nick most parts. Good shoulders, few bends and flat.
Many stretches of WA and QLD highway could be unrestricted too.
You can drive at the suggested speed limit for a day and not get anywhere. Our Country is so big.
You do have to be smart at those high speeds. Don't be in a hurry to overtake a triple trailer unless you have a +1 kilometer horizon. This is were the inexperienced bugger up. The closing speeds are so much more than what you might see at 110kmh.

[Pedro]

Originally Posted by malazn mafia

Fork you Harold Screwball. Complete utter waste of air. Is he the same guy who caused the supercar scare in the 70s? Hope he gets run over by a cyclist and ends up in a wheelchair and starts the wheelchair council, campaigning against cyclists instead.

No he's not the guy that started the 70's super car scare MM, but he created a furor amongst enthusiasts when he got plenty of press by declaring that the first F6 Typhoon was an overpowered death car. He is a complete richard cranium.

I emailed him some years ago and told him that he lives in a vacuum and is perceived by all and sundry as a supreme pest. He replied and more or less told me to mind my own business.

He used to be a councilor in Mosman Council (NSW) and drove all the other counselors mad so they collectively coerced the State Government to create a job for him and the rest of us have been stuck with his idiotic raving ever since.

By the way, he doesn't own or drive a car.

[fps_grandma]

They could always have an ad about the value-added bespoke interiors. Forget the Bentley heritage and the Bentley Boys and their Bentley Speed Six, that idea may not ... take off.

"Speed is the biggest killer on our roads. You only have to have a kangaroo hop out in front of you and you are dead," he said.

Meanwhile ol' biddy in her trusty Honda Civic and either doesn't keep her speed consistent with traffic, braking at the slightest disturbances she barely notices or doesn't check her blindspot and then indirectly causes traffic carnage around while she proddles along oblivious to what happened.

Safe driver award
5/5 stars
Society will always look up to you ol' biddy!

Originally Posted by Pedro

No he's not the guy that started the 70's super car scare MM, but he created a furor amongst enthusiasts when he got plenty of press by declaring that the first F6 Typhoon was an overpowered death car. He is a complete richard cranium.

overpowered death car
Ahahaha give me a break


Meanwhile apathetic soccer mums and dads speed around a school zone in a V8 Toyota Landcruiser, Porsche Cayenne Turbo or a BMW X5 M.

[NX74205]

Originally Posted by simon varley

so mister Scumby, exactly how many people have died or been seriously injured on the roads that NT is trialling the unlimited speed on?

More to the point, how many people have died or been seriously injured during the filming of that advertisement?

[2011G6E]

Originally Posted by Simple6

I know you probably know the answer, but for others reading - zero people have died. I can't think of anyone seriously injured, but that data isn't publicly reported or released.

The de-restricted zone has not contributed to the road toll at all in the 2.5 years it's been back, yet it's often debated by 'experts' because it's an easy & lazy target. How about tackle a difficult road safety topic like our major centres where majority of people die....too hard.

Anyway, I'm sliding off topic here, but I spent a lot of time a while back going through the public stats because I was sick of hearing that section of road blamed for road deaths. Unfortunately we're also due for an election here and I suspect if the other party gain government, then this little slice of freedom will be taken away in the interest of 'safety'. Scruby will be excited.

Is it true that in the first year after they brought in the speed limits in the NT that the road toll went up by 50% (or some other ludicrous amount) in the first 12 months? Seem to remember seeing that reported somewhere, in an embarrassed tone with no further explanations as to why.
One reason I did see was that previously with "no speed limit" people wouldn't have a psychological trigger of a speed sign to say how fast to drive...and because, amazingly, the vast majority of drivers are actually sensible, people drove to the conditions. If they felt comfortable at 100 to 120, they sat on that speed. If they felt confidant to give it some stick, they would sit on 150 to 160...however given the long distances, heat, and few and far between rest stops, from travellers I had talked to doing ludicrous speeds soon wore thin as fuel guzzled away and cars got hot, so they would mostly sit down on 120 to 130.
However if you put up an official sign saying "130" people would start to drive to that speed...and frankly some of them mightn't be able to handle that sort of speed, but hey, they government was telling you it was safe to do so, so they did. And failed.

Oh, and on this point about Scumby...

Originally Posted by Pedro

By the way, he doesn't own or drive a car.

He shouldn't even be asked for his opinion on cars, let alone be given any sort of platform to actually affect policy.
As with the abortion issue, if you don't have the equipment, it's really none of your business and you shouldn't get a say in official policy on the subject...

[Strange1]

I mean he is right to complain, you start showing ads like that and the next thing you know you have every Tom, Dick and Harry out there trading in their VT's and AU's for a new Bentley Continental GT Speed and doing 330km/h on the school run...

[Sabantien]

Found the full ad on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME3rpHk9Fss

They could always just invest some money into a movie where an actor drives one of their cars fast, product placement is allowed, right?

[EgoFG]

Most of Australia has the default 50k Speed limit (unless otherwise signposted)
I would wager that most KM of Aussie roads are under 90kmph - restricting most advertising.

I recall a Ford US ad with MA .. all done at low speeds

[ltd]

Harold Scruby is a total hypocrite.
He deliberately ran over a pedestrian in Mosman a few years back and his driving hasn't improved since.
He's the quintessential major-wowser of all things motoring.
Idiot even wants all motorsport banned for promoting speeding.
He's also the clown behind "Ausflag" - an organisation based on changing the flag, even going so far as to create an award for a new design, which he then gave to himself.

Some say that if we were to put a copper coil around his todger, and wrap his hand in iron sheet, hook him up to a battery - his daily musings would be enough to power all of Mosman, Cremorne and Neutral bay for a week.

[arronm]

What a load of rubbish.

Bet you Scruby had his head punched in and lunch money taken at school.....

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by Express

Apathy

True, but who cares

[Express]

Originally Posted by GasOLane

True, but who cares

[arronm]

I though for a moment Mosman, was WA, but alas its NSW. Shame I was going to introduce my territory to his green stuff...

[Romulus]

Another imbecile government bureaucrat deciding what's safe for other people. What is it with Australian's being absolutely incapable of thinking for themselves and requiring a law or piece of legislation for every aspect of their lives. Or is it just that we live in a Police/Nanny state?

[EB#]

Do you reckon John Bowe did the actual run without a helmet/suit, as the ad seems to suggest?
I reckon not.