Content warning: This article discusses a road safety campaign that depicts graphic imagery of traffic collisions, including child pedestrian deaths.
15 people have died on Northern Ireland’s roads since January. It’s March. Ardmore Group — the Belfast-headquartered independent agency voted People’s Choice UK Independent Agency of the Year at the 2023 Creativepool Awards — has just launched two ads that refuse to let anyone look away from that number.
The campaign, funded by Northern Ireland’s Department for Infrastructure as part of its Road Safety Strategy, targets two of the deadliest behaviors on the region’s roads: adverse driver behavior and speeding. No euphemisms. No soft landings. The spots depict what happens in the seconds after a bad decision behind the wheel — including the death of a child pedestrian.
The numbers behind the brief
Over the past decade, adverse driver behavior has accounted for 4,332 casualties in Northern Ireland. More than 95% of collisions where someone is killed or seriously injured are due to human error. Speeding alone has caused over 300 casualties in the same period.
Those aren’t abstract statistics. They’re the brief.
“Selfish choices cost lives”
Miriam Moertl, Managing Director at Ardmore, frames the objective in terms that don’t leave room for ambiguity. “Our objective from the Department was never for a warning, but to depict a moment of realisation that selfish choices cost lives,” she says.
The campaign deploys two ads — “Control or Speed” and “Priority List” — across television, radio, digital and outdoor. Both were directed by Michael J Ferns of The Gate Films, a Scottish filmmaker who won a Scottish BAFTA at 16 and has since directed for Virgin, Nespresso, LEGO and bet365. His drama background shows. These are not public service announcements that feel like public service announcements. They feel like scenes from a film you can’t pause.
The driver behavior spot: hundreds of decisions, one irreversible cost
“Priority List” explores the hundreds of micro-decisions every driver makes on every journey — and how priorities that feel harmless behind the wheel blur into catastrophe. Paul Bowen, Executive Creative Director at Ardmore, built the treatment around a simple truth: the things drivers consider important in the moment rarely are.
“We’re exploring how easily things that are perceived as priorities blur behind the wheel with irreversible cost,” Bowen says. The ad doesn’t preach. It shows.
The speeding spot: 17-to-24-year-old males on rural roads
“Control or Speed” goes after a specific audience — young men on rural roads who believe speed is never the problem. The excuses are familiar: it was raining, the hedges weren’t cut, visibility was poor. Bowen dismantles every one.
“Excuses like ‘it was raining, the hedges weren’t cut’ mask the fact that if you control your speed — you control your safety regardless of the conditions,” he says. The ad exposes what Bowen calls “the illusion that speed and control can coexist.”
An indie agency with a behavioral science backbone
Ardmore won the Department for Infrastructure account through competitive tender in September 2025. The brief isn’t a single campaign — it’s a series of creative initiatives designed to challenge every type of road user across behaviors including careless driving, drink and drug driving and seatbelt use.
The agency brings scale to the work. Ardmore Group is a 70-person operation headquartered outside Belfast with offices in London, Manchester and Dublin. It comprises advertising agency Ardmore, communications company LK Communications, performance management specialists BFG Digital and strategic advisory consultancy Confluence Consulting. As a shareholder in Worldwide Partners Inc — a global network of independent agencies across 40-plus countries — it taps into international consumer insights and behavioral research to inform campaigns like this one.
Why this matters beyond Northern Ireland
Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins launched the campaign with urgency that matches the creative. “Too many people are dying on our roads, something that has been brought into sharp focus within recent weeks,” she says. “We must all do everything we can to ensure no more families are plunged into the unimaginable and life changing grief that road deaths bring to their door.”
Northern Ireland is also introducing Graduated Driver Licensing in October 2026 — a scheme targeting the disproportionate involvement of new, primarily young drivers in fatal collisions. The broader “Share the Road to Zero” initiative has drawn backing from sports figures including Ulster Rugby’s Jacob Stockdale, Olympian Ciara Mageean and Liverpool’s Conor Bradley.
But policy only moves at the speed of legislation. Campaigns move at the speed of emotion. And Ardmore’s work here is built to hit before the thinking kicks in.
“Through a deeply collaborative approach, we are immensely proud of the results and to play our part in such an important campaign,” Moertl says.
Proud is the right word. This is the kind of work that proves indie agencies don’t need holding company infrastructure to produce campaigns that change — and save — lives.
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