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It is the latest road safety campaign, and there is not a mangled body in sight. Australian safety campaigners have decided to hit young speedsters where they’re vulnerable - between the legs.

The latest TV campaign to encourage drivers to respect speed limits features young women wiggling their little fingers at passing speedsters. The gesture represents a small penis in youth culture but in the ads, even an elderly woman uses the signal. So, too, do other young men who are not in the driver’s seat.

The new, low-hitting advert, has been introduced as safety campaigners do not believe that traditional messages showing bloody accidents have the ability to horrify young drivers into slowing down as they are watching increasingly violent video games and films.

The government agency responsible for the campaign - the New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority - stopped short of admitting length was the issue.

“To me the gesture says ’speeding - no one thinks big of you” , said the authority’s spokesman, John Whelan. “It will cause people who are speeding to think twice about the image they are creating.”

The young women featured in the ads however appear to be much more specific about what part of speedsters they think are not big. And the young male speedsters who notice the gesture appear suddenly crest fallen.

Mr Whelan said the ads were intended to be controversial. He said the traditional “shock and horror” television advertisements that warned against speeding by showing graphic images of car crashes and injuries were no longer effective for young people who frequently viewed worse images on computer games or in horror films.

The authority’s research, he said, suggested that young males were becoming desensitised to the shocking images of fatal road crashes used in past Australian road safety campaigns.

Said Mr Whelan: “I wouldn’t say it’s more light hearted - there’s element of I suppose darkish humour to what we’re doing in this advertisement.

“This gesture to which we’re referring is part of everyday language and part of our culture. So to align that message to our anti-speeding message, I think is going to have an impact.”

The campaign which will include television, cinema ads and bus stop posters will also feature a 15 second viral internet ad that will offer speedsters an “xtra xtra small” condom.

The £850 million ($A2 million) campaign has been prompted by widespread public concern in Sydney over a series of multiple road fatalities involving young, inexperienced male drivers still on their restricted, provisional driving licences. Speed has been a factor in many of the recent accidents.

Known as ’P platers’ , the young drivers will from next month have additional restrictions placed on their driving licences including a complete ban on hands free mobile phone use in their cars and the exclusion of young passengers from their vehicles at night.

Harold Scruby, the head of the road safety lobby group, the Pedestrian Council of Australia, said targeting the image of young male speedsters was clever and commendable.

Australian - made provocative advertising does not, however, have a recent history of great success.

The Australian starlet, Lara Bingle who earlier this year fronted the international Australian tourism “Where the bloody hell are you?” campaign has been quietly removed.

There is, as yet, no suggestion she will return with a “Where the bloody hell is it?” campaign to promote road safety.