Statistics on road fatalities, injury, and costs associated with road traffic accidents make grim reading and yet generally law-abiding people confess to breaking driving laws at one time or another. This paper examines the role media play in ‘normalising’ poor driving behaviours. Using media analysis, we examined the mixed messages in institutional (news reports, editorials), non-institutional (letters and texts to the editor) articles, and the Road Traffic Act (Queensland, Australia). We found there is ambivalence to this type of criminal behaviour and public safety messages. Police and road organisation warnings have little to no effect, and general community attitude to law breaking is attenuated by majority opinion
