TORONTO, ONTARIO (WGNO) – A new billboard in Canada is urging people to text and drive as a way to increase business for a local funeral home, but the message isn’t as morbid as you think.
The billboard, which simply tells people to “Text and Drive” and lists Wathan Funeral Home as the business, is actually a campaign to discourage texting and driving. And the funeral home mentioned on the billboard isn’t a real company.
When you go to the Wathan Funeral Home website, you learn that there is no Wathan Funeral Home. On the website, the group that purchased the billboard says the ad is an effort to get Canadians to stop texting and driving. They say texting and driving is projected to kill more people in Ontario this year than drinking and driving:
If you’re here, you’ve probably seen our “Text and Drive” billboard. And if you have, you probably came to this website to tell us what horrible people we are for running an ad like that. And you’d be right.
It is a horrible thing for a funeral home to do.
But we’re not a funeral home.