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And Finally Artist News
Iowa officials use Taylor Swift lyrics to promote road safety
By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 5 October 2017
Iowa’s Department Of Transportation has come up with a new campaign to stop people using their phones while driving. It involves Taylor Swift lyrics and the word ‘millennial’. Yes, I too want to get in my car right now and phone everyone I know to tell them how awful this sounds.
Earlier this week, the DOT tweeted a mocked up image of a road traffic warning sign – as part of its ‘Message Monday’ series of road safety updates – in which the sign read: “246 traffic deaths this year. Old Taylor can’t come to the phone… she’s driving”.
This is, of course, a take on the spoken line from Swift’s recent single, ‘Look What You Made Me Do’, in which she says, “The old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now… she’s dead”.
If the clunkiness of the road sign slogan wasn’t enough, they tweeted as a caption to the image: “If you don’t get the message today – ask the nearest millennial”.
I’m not really sure what the message is here. Are millennials particularly hot on not driving while using their phones? If I start replying to a text message while driving, should I stop and ask the nearest young person if it’s OK?
All that said, presumably Taylor Swift won’t begrudge her words being used to promote road safety, no matter how badly executed.
Though she is notoriously protective of those words and currently has a pending trademark application on the phrase “the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now”. That said, although the application covers everything from lithographs to “self-guided classes and self-guided online courses of instruction”, I don’t see any mention of road signs.
It’s not the first time Swift has featured in a public safety campaign on Twitter. Last year in the UK, Northants Police tweeted a doctored image suggesting that she and Tom Hiddleston were big fans of its counter-terrorism team, as part of a short-lived campaign called ‘Famous Friday’. That tweet ended up being deleted following a complaint. Iowa DOT’s Message Monday post remains online at this time.
