‘One death a day’ in Quebec, declares SAAQ’s new hard-hitting campaign

A driver texts while at the wheel in this photo illustration in Montreal on Jan. 25, 2017. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson)

Since its message is apparently no longer resonating as strongly with the public, the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) decided to launch a hard-hitting campaign this week to encourage drivers to adopt safe behaviours and reduce the number of road fatalities.

On average, one person dies every day on Quebec’s roads, whether they are a motorist, motorcyclist, cyclist, pedestrian or heavy vehicle driver.

To illustrate the alarming statistic, the SAAQ is presenting one victim to the public each day - the same rate at which deaths occur on the road network.

“We can ignore numbers, but not people. One death on the road is always one too many,” said SAAQ President and CEO Serge Lamontagne.

The campaign, he says, aims to humanize the victims, reminding drivers of their individual responsibilities and demonstrating the direct impact of driving behaviour on the number of deaths and injuries.

To develop the concept, the SAAQ commissioned long-standing partner, marketing agency LG2, with which it has been working for 15 years.

“We all had the same reaction on the team when we learned there had been 371 deaths in 2025. We thought, ‘My God, that’s one a day. It’s too many. It doesn’t make any sense,’” said Nicolas Boisvert, vice president of creative at LG2.

“We wondered how we could make people realize, people who, like us, forget the numbers because they become data that aren’t that tangible. From there, the plan took shape. We said to ourselves: ‘Let’s go for a very direct, very human approach, to put faces on these tragic deaths.’ That’s where the idea came from to create one ad per day to remind people that there is one death per day on our roads.”

The SAAQ approved the proposal without hesitation.

Each ad uses the same formula: “There is one death a day on Quebec’s roads. Today, it’s me,” but each time with a different context.

“When LG2 presented this concept to the road safety communication strategies department, we thought, ‘Wow, that’s exactly it.’ It’s something impactful that appeals to the imagination and touches us so that we feel concerned,” says Geneviève Côté, a spokesperson with the SAAQ.

She notes that the situation is significantly better than it was 20 years ago, when there were twice as many road fatalities.

“But we’ve seen in recent years that it’s become harder to make further progress,” said Côté.

That fact prompted the SAAQ to “come up with something different, which people will identify with and see that there are real people behind the numbers.”

“It was a conscious decision to create messages that aren’t pleasant to look at to show that it doesn’t make sense,” added Boisvert. “In this case, it was necessary to return to a more confrontational, more direct approach.”

The timing chosen to launch this campaign “is no coincidence,” said Côté.

“In the spring, vulnerable road users return to the roads: pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists,” she said. “As drivers, we need to readjust as we encounter these vulnerable users on the road.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on May 22, 2026.