Currently in The Netherlands there is a new law that makes using your mobile phone when you’re driving in any way illegal. Before this law the only thing that was illegal was calling someone not handsfree when you’re driving a car. This because before the main thing you did with your phone was calling and because of it is dangerous it is forbidden. Now the main thing people do with their smartphone is using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Whatsapp etcetera. These activities can be really dangerous in the traffic.
This is the advertisement of the campaign which literally means ‘Social media and traffic don’t go together’.
Everywhere in The Netherlands are signs placed next to the highway that when you want do go on social media you have to do that on a parking place next to the highway. Also advertisements of this campaign are shown on Dutch television. The ministry of infrastructure and an organisation called ‘Veilig Verkeer Nederland’ which means safe traffic Holland started this campaign. Also the big telecom providers support the message and place banners on their website.
From October 2013 also cyclists in The Netherlands will be alerted for the dangers they risk when they use their smartphone while cycling. Researchers concluded that 49% of the cyclists in The Netherlands sometimes read a text-message while cycling and 35% sometimes sends a text-message. The organisation called TeamAlert wants to get attention for this through school projects and also through social media itself. Today there is no fine for cyclists using social media of using their smartphone, but I assume that there will be one in the future.
http://webwereld.nl/mobility/79300-politie-controleert-extra-op-smartphone-gebruik-in-de-auto
When I was doing research for my strategy project I found an article about this subject as well. It said that using Facebook, Twitter etc. while driving cause dozens of lethal car accidents on annual basis and someone who reads a message and responds to it, while driving on the highway, is not paying attention to the road on a length of three soccer fields. Which are pretty shocking numbers I think. These numbers were presented by the Dutch ministry of infrastructure and were the actual motive of the campaign that you are talking about in your post.
Also we set up a survey for our strategy project and we asked who used their smartphone while driving and 19% of the respondents said they did. Which I think is pretty stupid and dangerous, certainly since most of these respondents were students and unexperienced drivers. People should really think more about the possible consequences of their actions cause they can cause a lot of harm by just checking their phone.