South Dakota Pulls 'Don't Jerk And Drive' Campaign

This is a true story. Honest. The South Dakota Highway Safety Office decided to promote a new campaign to keep people from over correcting their steering wheels in icy conditions. This is, apparently, commonly known in South Dakota anyway as "jerking" the steering wheel, so they came up with the slogan, "Don't Jerk And Drive."

Unfortunately, some drivers, who apparently thought more clearly than the people at the Highway Safety Office, thought the campaign slogan was a bad idea.

According to Trevor Jones, secretary of the Dept. of Public Safety, even though it was intended to be an important safety message, the ad was pulled because it apparently distracted from the goal of saving lives on the road because a few people appear to have inferred something else from the wording of the slogan.

Meanwhile, the Highway Safety office insists that the double entendre was inserted intentionally to get people's attention. (Huh?) In icy conditions, according to the office, drivers should avoid the urge of jerking the steering wheel. As the narrator says in the TV ad, "Resist the urge to jerk the steering wheel. Over correcting only creates more chaos. Besides, nobody likes a jerker."

South Dakota State Rep. Mike Verchio says he wants to ask the department exactly what it thought it was doing before the social media promotions and TV commercials were yanked.