Never before has the state-run Danish Road Safety Council attracted so much attention at home, let alone around the world, as it has with a spoof news bulletin featuring a team of “speed control bikini bandits” who try to persuade young men to slow down.

Dressed only in red hotpants, they stand by the roadside holding 50km/h signs above their heads and jiggling their breasts at startled drivers.

The council initially posted its 90-second video, which can be found at www.speedbandits.dk, on a modest 33 websites in early November. Within three weeks it had spread to 2,200 sites, with 4.8m viewers in 206 countries. It has received as many hits in Britain — 300,000 — as in Denmark itself.

Julia Pauli, of the road safety council, said there had been “a very positive reaction”, with half the target audience saying they would think more about the dangers of speeding. What the other half were thinking goes unrecorded.

But feminists and family campaigners have condemned what they call a “ridiculous” campaign. “It’s degrading,” said Randi Theil Nielsen, of Denmark’s Women’s Council. “It is based on the idea that young men are preoccupied with sex and this view of young men is wrong.”

Mary Honeyball, a British Labour MEP, said the clip was tantamount to soft porn and promised to raise the issue with the women’s rights committee of the European parliament.

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