There is a british public service announcement that was aired and sparked controversey due to its controversy.

WARNING: This video may be NSFW and is very difficult to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rdV9ADjpcg

It took a little while to find an unflagged video.

News article about it:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Even in a world with increasingly tough and graphic public service announcements on TV about the dangers of such activities as smoking, a recent PSA originating out of Gwent, Wales, breaks new boundaries in the explicit level of its bloody details.

Two teen girls giggle over a text message they are sending while driving along a country road. Distracted, the driver smashes head-on into another car, and while the bloodied girls exchange dazed glances, a third car careens into the passenger side.

The driver finds her friend lying dead next to her. Then the camera switches to another smashed vehicle and shows a young child inside, asking why her parents are not waking up.

Produced by the Gwent Police Department, the PSA sends out a horrible visual to illustrate the dangers of texting while driving. But it currently isn’t being aired on U.S. television. For Americans to even view the ad on YouTube, they must assert they are at least 18.

Warning from Wales
A South Wales community of 550,000 that many Americans have never even heard of seems an unlikely place for discussion of the dangers of texting-and-driving to be raised, but a visionary Gwent police department was up to the task. Police locked arms with filmmaker Peter Watkins-Hughes to produce the PSA, titled “COW — The Film That Will Stop You Texting and Driving,” named after the character Cassie Cowan, who unleashes the lethal chain of events by texting behind the wheel.

Some 300 drama students from throughout Wales auditioned for the movielike short, with local police cars and air ambulance helicopters used to lend an even more vivid reality to the film. Digital special effects were used to give viewers the “you are there” feeling of being inside Cowan’s vehicle as the road carnage ensues.

Gwent’s Chief Constable Mick Giannasi said it was the department’s intent for the PSA to cut a wider swath than just Wales.

“The messages contained in the film are as relevant to the people of Tennessee as they are to the residents [of Wales],” he said on the department’s Web site. “Texting and driving can have tragic consequences, and the more this film is viewed, the better.”

Required viewing?
Appearing on TODAY Tuesday, noted ad executive Donny Deutsch said he believes the ad may be the most powerful ever — and agreed that it needs to be required viewing.

“I will show this to every kid I know, and I salute the police department,” Deutsch told TODAY’s Ann Curry. “I would really implore various local stations: Run this stuff, put this on the air. It will help.

Recent studies show that texting while driving may be as dangerous and lethal as drunken driving. Up to a quarter of the estimated 40,000 vehicle fatalities in the U.S. annually may be traced back to distracted drivers texting. A recent Virginia Tech study found that texting drivers are 23 times more likely to be involved in a collision than nontexters. And although the AAA reports 95 percent of drivers polled acknowledge texting while driving is dangerous, 21 percent of them have done it recently anyway.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The rest of the article is here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32551351/ns/today-today_technology_and_money/

I think that this announcement isn't over the top, and it shows the dangers that can occur from texting and driving. It may be graphic, but they are the true horrors that occur.

That's a pretty powerful ad, though I didn't find it as distressing as the one with the small dead boy the followed the bloke around.

But that's what these ads are supposed to do.