Because the Department of Transportation advertises in a campaign for bicycle helmets with lightly-clad models, it gets into the criticism. The SPD faction member Katja Mast says the campaign addresses the right topic, but the implementation with wearing helmets models in underwear "embarrassing, stale and sexist". "Half-naked women and men should not be banned with tax money on billboards," she told the "Passauer Neue Presse".
Josephine Ortleb, women's spokeswoman for the SPD, told the newspaper that the federal government urgently needs an equality campaign. It needs "neither women nor objects, naked skin nor sexism to make young people aware of cycling safety," said Ortleb.
Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) spoke on Twitter to speak. "Also young men in underwear and helmet were photographed for the campaign," he answered the criticism.
"It's about attracting attention," Scheuer is quoted in a statement from the ministry. She has already received the campaign: she made a lot of ironic comments on the internet. Besides understanding, there was also a lot of criticism.
Cooperation with GNTM
In cooperation with the TV program "Germany's Next Top Model", the Ministry of Transport and the Verkehrssicherheitsrat had designed a poster campaign. From the beginning of next week the posters titled "Looks like shit but saves my life" will hang on streets and cycle lanes in big cities like Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne. The posters show women and men in underwear and with a bicycle helmet.
"More than half of the young cyclists say of themselves that they never or rarely wear a helmet, and why not because it does not look cool," the statement said on the website of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Transportation digital infrastructure continues. "The saying may not be quite the same as the usual German official, but he sums up the message in a nutshell: helmets save lives!".