Farmers' HelpPoint Anti-Bike Ad Gets Slammed

I think people are exaggerating and being a little touchy. It is obviously stressing this man's need to ride his kid's bike after his car is wrecked. I don't see how it offends us cyclists at all.

My favorite part is when an old clunker drives by him leaving him in a cloud of smoke. It seems like that message is:

If you ride a bike, you have to deal with the pollution from cars!
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How is that in any way demeaning to cyclists. All it says is if you don't have the correct insurance carrier you're going to have to find your own way to work, in this case on his kids bike, if you get in an accident. Unless you twist it in some delusion of reference I fail to see how it's demeaning.

welll the video got stuck in youtube.. n itz not gettin loaded!! but it sounds to be a great work!!! congrats guyz!!! wish i could be a good treehugger too!! lol!!

That's much worse! Terrible terrible ad.

Insane!

If anything it shows how our infrastructure in fact our very lives is built around cars, if you look at modern housing tracks you would think that cars lived there not people with the big 3 car garage doors out front and a tiny little 1 person door hidden around the side!

definitely worse. much much worse.
1. the bicyclist doesn't even have a bike that matches his height or weight.
2. he's riding on the highway which is illegal [not the only illegal thing he did in the vid]
3. it seems to promote car vs cyclist anger, not something that needs to be aggravated as it can be a touchy issue already.
4. it does nothing to promote biking whatsoever.

There are so many things wrong with this AD:

1.It implies that only children ride bicycles; adults drive cars.

2.It implies that middle class suburbanites who live miles from the city where they work are entitled to cars. They shouldn't be "forced" to ride bikes or public transportation like some sort of granola eating hippies.

3.It implies that after an accident your only option would be to borrow your kids bike -- as if that would be preferable to public transportation or heavens getting your own bike.

The attitude in this ad is part of the reason we have so much air pollution and traffic gridlock. Unfortunately it will take more than badgering Farmers into pulling the ad to change the underlying attitude.

The ad guys and management that ok'd this ad should be fired. Ridiculous! Did they use a dwarf, a cut down bike or video editing to make the bike & rider look so small? How about the driver shooting the bird to the cyclist? That's a great seed to plant with television viewers. As if motorists aren't aggressive enough against cyclists... A motorist tried to run me down once just for being on the street.

Any corporation that shows a lack of consideration for cyclists is on my personal blacklist. Are you listening - Farmer's HelpPoint?

The other ad was debatable. This is just nasty. The punchline is downright insulting. The whole bike thing is downright insulting.

I would think, that as an insurance company, they'd have their advertisers do just a bit of market research before this kind of insult was released. They've got to know that they're insulting a whole segment of the population.

Although, I asked my car insurance company if they offered biking insurance. No on the theft protection but I was told that my Personal Injury Protection and stacking should cover me even if I'm on a bike and in an accident with an auto. PIP is required by the state of MN. So MN bikers who also have auto insurance should be able to get accidents covered.

I like this commercial, these people are telling the truth, and they are being honest. It IS hard to be a cyclist among so many cars, so in my opinion, this commercial is actually a good commercial.
They are not saying were stupid for cycling, they are saying it could be easier that we are risk takers and what we do is tough.

so thank you farmers help point for the amazing compliment, and thank you for recognizing the difficulty of getting around on city streets, much obliged.

There's a guy on a cool bike halfway through that dusts him. At least it's got that going for it.

I agree with a lot of the other comments - it's about not being prepared. They even show him riding next to an actual bike commuter. With what I had heard I was expecting something that was truly offensive.

To a lot of Americans, that's what bike commuting looks like. I don't doubt that they did market research prior to airing the ad, and people probably thought it was accurate.

Until we have physically separate bike paths, commutes less than a few miles, and showers at every workplace, bicycle commuting is going to be the realm of granola-eating hippies. I sure as hell am not going to start risking my life, showing up to work sweaty, and spending an hour or more on the road every day just to save a few gallons of gas. I'll take the bus first. At least that will only take me a half hour to get to work.

What's the thing with these "Farms" people? Really, what are they thinking?