For Every Dollar NHTSA Spends Saying ‘Slow Down,’ Carmakers Spend $540 Saying ‘Go Fast’

An IIHS content analysis of television advertising from 2018 through 2022 found that 43 percent of car ads featured speed, performance, or traction as a primary theme.^[1] Only 3 percent mentioned safety. During that same five-year window, speed-related crashes killed roughly 60,000 Americans and injured over 1.5 million more.^[2]

Run the math on that and something absurd falls out. U.S. automotive advertising totaled approximately $12 billion in 2024, according to Statista.^[3] If 43 percent carries speed themes, that is $5.2 billion annually spent glorifying the single most lethal driving behavior in America. Now consider that NHTSA's entire anti-speeding media campaign budget is $9.6 million.^[4] For every dollar the federal government spends telling drivers to slow down, the automotive industry spends roughly $540 telling them to floor it. Nobody planned this ratio, and nobody is accountable for it, yet it simply exists, a structural feature of a market that simultaneously invests billions in crumple zones and billions in the demand for crashes that test them.

Performance themes in car ads are not new. IIHS ran a similar content analysis in 1998 and found speed was a theme in half of all automobile advertisements, with 17 percent treating it as the primary selling point.^[5] Consumer Reports replicated the finding in 2017: 40 percent performance themes.^[1] A quarter century of research showing the same pattern, and speed's share of total traffic fatalities has barely moved from its 29 to 30 percent floor. In 2021, NHTSA recorded a 14-year high in speed-related deaths.^[2] Progress on seatbelt compliance, drunk driving enforcement, and vehicle crashworthiness has dragged total fatalities down from 55,000 in 1970 to 36,640 in 2025.^[6] Speed's relative share just sits there, immovable, like a load-bearing wall in a house that keeps getting renovated around it.

Federal regulation is a vacuum. FTC truth-in-advertising law says nothing about depicting unsafe driving, and FCC public-interest requirements never mention speed. ABC's advertising standards instruct that "safe and lawful driving practices should be depicted at all times" and then list seatbelts and distracted driving as examples, never mentioning the behavior responsible for one in three fatalities.^[7] NBCUniversal requires advertisers to "portray compliance with standard safety precautions" and also does not define speed as a safety precaution. Federal law bans tobacco advertising on broadcast media. Voluntary agreements restrict how alcohol ads portray consumption. Car ads glorifying triple-digit speeds on public roads? Self-regulated, unenforced, unrestricted.

What makes this genuinely strange is the internal contradiction within the companies themselves. Ford sponsors Driving Skills for Life, a teen safe-driving program with the Governors Highway Safety Association, and then runs Mustang ads that fetishize acceleration from zero to illegal in 4.2 seconds. General Motors partners with the National Safety Council on DriveitHOME, a teen driver training initiative, while Chevrolet Camaro spots showcase tire-smoking launches. Toyota spent $661.3 million on advertising in 2024 and competes fiercely for IIHS TOP SAFETY PICK awards, and those two financial commitments work at cross purposes with each other every time a GR Corolla ad airs during a football game.^[3]

Limitations

Correlation between ad content and driving behavior is documented in media-effects research but not specifically isolated for automotive advertising. IIHS's content analysis covered television ads and may not represent digital or social media campaigns, which now account for 74.7 percent of automotive ad spend. Not every speed-themed ad directly promotes illegal velocity; some depict track environments or emphasize acceleration responsiveness rather than raw top speed. Our $5.2 billion figure applies the 43 percent rate to total national ad spend, which includes non-TV media the IIHS study did not analyze. NHTSA's $9.6 million campaign budget reflects a single fiscal cycle and may undercount state-level enforcement spending.

Strongest Counterargument

Automakers invest billions in actual safety technology, including AEB, ESC, and advanced airbag systems, that demonstrably save thousands of lives per year. IIHS TOP SAFETY PICK criteria get stricter annually, and manufacturers consistently redesign vehicles to meet them. Ads are aspirational entertainment, not behavioral instruction manuals, and consumers understand the difference between a cinematic desert sprint and their Tuesday commute. Professional driver disclaimers appear on every performance ad. If advertising caused speeding, countries with strict ad regulations would show measurably different speed-related fatality shares, and the evidence for that specific comparison is thin.

Fair enough. But tobacco companies also argued that ads were aspirational, not instructional, and we banned those ads anyway once the body count got high enough. Media-effects research across food, alcohol, and tobacco consistently shows that repeated aspirational exposure shifts normative behavior even when viewers "know better." Speed kills 12,000 Americans a year, has killed 12,000 a year for decades, and the industry selling the product spends 540 times more romanticizing the danger than the government spends fighting it. At some point, the gap between what we regulate and what we tolerate becomes its own kind of policy decision.

What You Should Do

If you are shopping for a new vehicle, ignore the ad and read the IIHS rating. Check whether AEB, lane-keeping assist, and blind-spot monitoring are standard or optional on the trim you can afford. If your teenager is about to start driving, have an honest conversation about the fact that car companies market speed to their demographic on purpose and that speed is the factor in roughly one of every three fatal crashes. Check your state's graduated licensing laws at iihs.org. And next time a car ad makes you feel something about acceleration, notice that feeling. Somebody spent $430,000 per eventual speed death to put it there.