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It's funny. Laugh. Transportation United States

Humorous Highway Signs Aim To Steer Drivers Safely Down The Old Town Road (npr.org) 43

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Drive down any U.S. interstate and there's a good chance you will see a pun or a funny reference on the next electronic message board you spot. From a report: Such messages have become ubiquitous across the country lately. But besides getting a snicker, what's behind these roadside bits, and are they making drivers behave any differently? They are known as Dynamic Message Signs, and they usually remind drivers about speed limits or traffic delays. Though the technology has been around for decades, in recent years states across the country have been taking a different tack with their messaging in a bid for more eyeballs.

A recent message that was flashing out across Illinois expressways is a perfect example of this. It read, "Got The Munchies? Get Food Delivered. Don't Drive High!" Since Illinois legalized marijuana this year, transportation officials have been trying to get people to avoid driving stoned, so why not appeal to a stoner's love for snacking? Elmo Bruggink, an Illinois tourist from the Netherlands, weighed in on the message. His home country is a place that has long been dealing with drivers who smoke weed, but Bruggink said officials haven't tried humor yet.
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Humorous Highway Signs Aim To Steer Drivers Safely Down The Old Town Road More

Humorous Highway Signs Aim To Steer Drivers Safely Down The Old Town Road

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  • Huge Waste of Money (Score:3)

    by nuckfuts ( 690967 ) on Thursday March 05, 2020 @04:10PM (#59800624)
    These enormous overhead signs have been popping up near where I live for a few years now, overhanging multiple lanes of traffic. They are very expensive - costing tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars. I have yet to see a single message displayed that was of any use to me. As a taxpayer I'm already annoyed by these things. If they started using them to display stupid jokes I would be doubly annoyed.

    • Re:Huge Waste of Money (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TheCowSaysMoo ( 4915561 ) on Thursday March 05, 2020 @04:40PM (#59800698)

      I used to commute 45 minutes to/from work along a major interstate. There are a handful of these signs along the route and they were useless, never really displaying much of anything except, "Buckle up! It's the law!" and similar.

      Until the semi-tractor trailer crashed and the entire trailer went up in flames and shut down the interstate in both directions for several hours. Then the sign displayed, "Crash at MM[number]. All lanes blocked. Use alternate route." There's really only one alternate route because of a mountain and if you miss the exit directly after the sign, there's no turning back (legally). The sign gave me the opportunity to exit and take the alternate route and I was able to watch the hours-long cleanup from my living room instead of my car.

      • True, but the same effect could have been accomplished by a local cop diverting traffic.
      • Not sure what was wrong with your transportation department... In my state they use them during rush hour to notify people of long delays along certain routes so that you have the option use an alternate route. Similarly, they will notify of accidents, blocked lanes ahead, or construction, so well worth the money. When they aren't needed for those purposes, they sensibly splash those kinds of messages.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        They are used a lot for silver alerts [wikipedia.org] in my town.

    • Re:Huge Waste of Money (Score:4, Informative)

      by rho ( 6063 ) on Thursday March 05, 2020 @04:44PM (#59800706) Journal

      Where I live they have helped multiple times by notifying of traffic problems down the road. The traffic patterns are pretty simple, so a wreck a dozen miles on a different interstate can back up traffic during rush hours and it helps to sort out a different route early. It works well for medium sized cities best, I think. For a place like LA, I suspect Waze would be better.

      The jokey signs just put me in a better mood, which ain't nothing.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Where I live they have helped multiple times by notifying of traffic problems down the road. The traffic patterns are pretty simple, so a wreck a dozen miles on a different interstate can back up traffic during rush hours and it helps to sort out a different route early. It works well for medium sized cities best, I think. For a place like LA, I suspect Waze would be better.

        The jokey signs just put me in a better mood, which ain't nothing.

        That's usually the purpose - to tell you of things. But the real need

        • I know the ones in my area generally will show the average driving time between the sign and a certain reference point, usually downtown or the next major interstate connection

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      Here they're used to announce scheduled maintenance and to give you estimated drive times when there's traffic.

    • âoeDrive now, catch Pokémon laterâ served as a reminder that it was a community day and that Iâ(TM)d better damn well catch those Larvitars *right now*.

  • Instead, we drove cars without airbags or crumple zones and if a driver wasn't paying attention to the road, they could drift into a tree and cut their life short. Darwin took the bad drivers out of the gene pool and kept the streets safe for everyone else.

    But now we have airbags and they've removed those roadside trees and straightened and widened the roads so people can drive faster with very little risk of injury to themselves even as they text each other and watch Netflix on their mobile phones. It's sa

    • Darwin took the bad drivers out of the gene pool and kept the streets safe for everyone else.

      I seriously doubt that being a bad driver is genetically encoded and even assuming it is, humans don't evolve that fast. It would take several thousands of years to evolve better drivers this way.

  • They missed
    The turn
    Car was whizz'n
    Fault was her'n
    Funeral his'n
    Burma-Shave

  • Boston's been doing this for years:

    https://www.bostonglobe.com/op... [bostonglobe.com]

    Most useful are the projected number of hours (well, minutes, but close enough) to get to downtown from outside of the city. Too bad Waze beat them to the punch.

  • What's the smoothest shave of all?

    Burma-Shave

  • It sounds like the set up for a put down, but it turns out they haven't tried it yet.

  • Texting while driving? Oh CELL NO
  • Changing anything in the environment we drive in forces us to pay attention and snap out the usual unconscious mode of automated driving. Plus it's well established that people remember things better if the message or the context is a bit different or usual. Use these signs properly and it's definitely a good idea. Display boring and repetitive information, try to cram in too much or be too distracting and it's a problem. I think "Got The Munchies? Get Food Delivered. Don't Drive High!" is an example of doi

  • Please, watch this movie. DMS signs play a major role. You can thank me later!

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