Road-hog: never be called one! is a 1943 driving-safety poster, D. E. P. No. 2 in the American Automobile Association's "Driver Education" series. A grinning pig in a dark car blocks a street while bystanders point and shout and other drivers sit hemmed in (NAID 515315).
A label made literal
The joke is the whole poster. It takes the insult "road-hog" at its word and puts an actual pig at the wheel. In the archive's description the pig grins from a dark car blocking the street. Bystanders point and shout, and the other drivers are hemmed in.
ROAD-HOG
Never be called one!
© AAA
D. E. P. No. 2
Copyright 1943
American Automobile Association
Traffic Engineering & Safety Dept.
"DRIVER EDUCATION" SERIES
Accidents Are Avoidable
Alertness Avoids Accidents
Shame as the method
The archive tags one technique, name-calling. Here the name-calling points inward. The poster does not insult an enemy or a group; it hands the reader an insult and warns him not to earn it. The deterrent is the pointing crowd. No fine or law is mentioned. The sheet relies on the driver's wish not to look like a pig in front of other people.
That is a mild form of persuasion, and an honest one: the behavior shown, blocking traffic, really is a nuisance. The two alliterative lines make the safety case directly. Neither mentions the war.
A private series in a government file
The imprint belongs to the American Automobile Association's Traffic Engineering and Safety Department, with a 1943 copyright and the series number D. E. P. No. 2. No government office is named. The archive records the issuer type as "Mixed" and the purpose as "Warn or inform," and the National Archives holds the sheet in its World War II poster series. The archive's rights line nonetheless reads "Public domain (U.S. government work)," while the sheet itself prints an AAA copyright. This page reports both and does not settle the question.
Other sheets on this site that teach by a cartoon type include the wartime truck-maintenance poster Nap and Help a Jap, whose "Careless Carl" sleeps beside his truck, and the shop-floor cartoon Out!, which names its troublemaker "Tom Trouble."
Sources
- FRAME object record, Road-hog: never be called one!, 1943. American Automobile Association, Traffic Engineering & Safety Department, "Driver Education" series, D. E. P. No. 2.
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, 44-PA-1648, NAID 515315, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).
