The worldwide trend for atheists to advertise on buses looks set to cease after a study found that 95% of people killed in bus accidents didn’t believe in God.
Professor Paul Saunders of Boston University, who headed the international study into the religious affiliation of road accident victims, said the results were surprising: “Until relatively recently, the incidence of atheists being killed by buses was around 8% of all victims, roughly in line with the prevalence of atheism in the general population. But the last few years has seen this inexplicable spike.”
Professor Saunders ruled out bus driver hatred of atheists as an explanation given that a Richard Dawkins t-shirt is harder to identify at a distance than, say, hijab clothing or a full length Amish ensemble. “Also, previous research has identified that bus drivers tend to despise everybody fairly equally” clarified Professor Saunders.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, said the explanation for the high rate of atheist mortality was staring everybody in the face: “The suggestion is that this is God’s way of giving atheists a poke in the eye, as it were, for their impertinence in doubting His existence – obvious bollocks of course. We think the real reason for the spike is those 'cleverer than thou' atheists have been so entranced by the wit and daring of their slogans, they forgot to get out of the way of the buses.”
The study has provoked a schism in the atheist community, with a majority of members now believing that “higher forces are at work”. Thus, a better safe than sorry approach has been taken and existing bus ads have been pulled.
Alternatives have been sought, but atheist leading light Richard Dawkins says a train ad campaign was tempting fate, and a traditional TV ad campaign exposed members to brain death: “So we have decided to stick with the buses, but this time with a new slogan of “Sorry””.