---
title: Steer clear of bad bumps! Protect the casings
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/steer-clear-of-bad-bumps-protect-the-casings-1943/
description: 'Orange and brown sheet: a speeding truck tyre hits a rock outcrop beneath ''Steer clear of bad bumps!'', with a white panel ''Tires must be conserved'''
section: Collection
---

1. [Home](https://propagandaarchive.org/)
2. [Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)
3. Steer clear of bad bumps! Protect the casings

[![Steer clear of bad bumps! Protect the casings, 1943 US poster: Orange and brown sheet](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/steer-clear-of-bad-bumps-protect-the-casings-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/steer-clear-of-bad-bumps-protect-the-casings-1943.jpg)

# Steer clear of bad bumps! Protect the casings

Orange and brown sheet: a speeding truck tyre hits a rock outcrop beneath 'Steer clear of bad bumps!', with a white panel 'Tires must be conserved' addressed to the soldier. The tell is a mild fear-appeal of scarcity: wreck the casing and 'you will ride less and walk more'.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
STEER CLEAR
OF BAD BUMPS!
TIRES MUST BE CONSERVED
That's no joke, soldier. The tire shortage, serious for more than a year, is now critical. It's real—so real that even the Army, accustomed to getting everything it needs, must learn to get along with fewer tires in 1944 than it had in 1943. It's an OFFICIAL fact that few, IF ANY, new tires will be available for Army trucks anywhere in the United States. Proper care of tires must offset this reduction, and will, if you do your part. Otherwise, you will ride less and walk more!
Protect the Casings
OBSERVE ALL MAINTENANCE RULES
See TM 31-200
KEEP SPEED AND PRESSURE WHERE THEY BELONG
U.S. ARMY SAVE CONSERVATION PROGRAM
[imprint: ARMY CONSERVATION PROJECT NO. 46-0-4]
[imprint: U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1943—O-562019]
```

[← The state of this nation is good](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/state-of-the-nation-roosevelt-owi-poster-40-1943/) [Stop Breakage: Don't leave thermometer where it can be broken →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/stop-breakage-thermometer-army-1943/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)