As its message appears to be losing impact with the public, the SAAQ this week launched a shock campaign aimed at encouraging drivers to adopt safer behaviours and reduce the number of victims on Quebec roads.
On average, one person dies every day on Quebec roads. Motorists, motorcyclists, cyclists, pedestrians and heavy-vehicle drivers alike are all affected.
To illustrate the alarming statistic, a potential victim is presented to the public at the same pace as the deaths recorded on the road network.
“We can ignore numbers, but not people. One road death is always one too many,” said SAAQ president and CEO Serge Lamontagne.
The hard-hitting campaign aims to humanize victims, remind drivers of their individual responsibility and demonstrate the direct impact road behaviour has on the number of deaths and injuries.
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To develop the concept, the SAAQ turned to longtime partner LG2, the marketing agency it has worked with for roughly 15 years.
“We all had the same reaction on the team when we learned there had been 371 deaths in 2025. We said, ‘My God, that’s one a day. It’s too much. It makes no sense,’” said Nicolas Boisvert, vice-president of creative at LG2.
“We asked ourselves how we could make people realize, like us, that these numbers are often forgotten because they become just data and don’t feel tangible. From there, the concept came together. We decided on a very direct, very human approach to put faces to these tragic deaths. That’s where the idea of running one ad a day came from, to remind people that there is one death a day on our roads.”
The SAAQ approved the proposal without hesitation. Each ad uses the same message, “There is one death a day on Quebec roads. Today, it’s me” but places it in a different context each time.
“When LG2 presented the concept to the road safety communications strategy team, we immediately said, ‘Wow, that’s exactly it,’” said SAAQ spokesperson Geneviève Côté.
“It’s something more shocking that appeals to people’s imagination and really affects us so we feel concerned.”
While the road safety record is significantly better than it was 20 years ago, when there were twice as many deaths on Quebec roads, Côté said recent years have shown it has become “more difficult to make gains.”
That prompted the SAAQ to “come up with something different, where people will identify even more and see there are human beings behind the numbers.”
“It was a conscious decision to create messages that are not pleasant to watch, to show that this situation makes no sense,” Boisvert added. “In this case, it was necessary to return to a more frontal, more direct approach.”
Côté added the timing of the campaign “is not a coincidence.”
“In the spring, vulnerable road users return, pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. Drivers need to get used to sharing the road with them again.”
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
