No joke: Feds are banning humorous electronic messages on highways
apnews.com
It’s no joke. Humorous and quirky messages on electronic signs will soon disappear from highways and freeways across the country.
The U.S. Federal Highway Administration has given states two years to implement all the changes outlined in its new 1,100-page manual released last month, including rules that spells out how signs and other traffic control devices are regulated.
Administration officials said overhead electronic signs with obscure meanings, references to pop culture or those intended to be funny will be banned in 2026 because they can be misunderstood or distracting to drivers.
If this is distracting, so are ads: Ban them too!
Fuck Billboards and 50 ft tall signs.
They completely ruin natural scenery.
But don't you want to know that every child is a gift from God and abortion is MURDER?
Are those a thing outside the south? Because as soon as you pass through mid Virginia and pass the giant confederate flag, BOOM. Jesus Jesus jesus
They're a thing here in Indiana, but that almost doesn't count as outside the south.
Virginia doesn't allow billboards, thank goodness.
They are in much of the west as well
"It's the road that's distracting you from our gauche advertisement eyesores, not the other way around!"
-Corporations
I’ve enjoyed these kinds of signs here in NJ. They’re no more distracting than billboards and actually get safety messages across better through humor. I think this is a bad idea.
Billboards should be banned for being a distraction and taking up mind space
This is why I close my eyes when I drive, so they can't force the billboards into my brain.
Clown college? Pfft, you can't eat that
I could get behind that, but I was more pointing out the hypocrisy rather than endorsing billboards
I can see how someone whose first language isn't English could have a hard time telling if an official sign is an important message or a humorous one. That's not an issue for billboards because those never have important information.
This is exactly what it is. Nothing stopping these local highway patrol and safety departments from erecting electronic signs on the side of the highway for all their cute messages.
It's that they're using the big electronic ones that are overhead while driving which should be uniformly easy to understand, simple, and official.
Basically, if there's a message on a sign above the actual road and it takes you more than a second to understand what it's trying to say, it needs to be revamped.
It's not hypocrisy because the signs they're talking about are not in the same places as billboards. There are regulations about how far back billboards have to be. The signs in question here are the ones that are actually over the road or literally on the side of it, not 20 yards back.
And part of the reason that they don't let billboards just hover literally over top of the roads is because they're distracting. Signage that is on the road needs to have an official purpose and convey information that is relevant to the driver, and that information has to be delivered in a simple, uniform, and clear manner.
They are in Vermont. Be the change you want to see!
Several other states too. Not enough.
Oh? I thought Vermont was unique in that! Still, as you said, definitely not enough...
I'll even settle for turning off electronic ones at sunset
Yes, but that would anger the corporate overlords, and we simply can’t have that, can we?
Yeah but those make them monies
If humorous signs are too big of a distraction, billboards should also be banned.
There's an electronic billboard in my town that suddenly becomes visible as you go around a curve in a highway with a complicated exit at the end. Accidents happen there all the time and I think the momentary distraction of the billboard changing at that critical point is part of the reason why.
Stop right there criminal scum!
the problem in the lower pic is the cars, not the signs.
well, also the signs, but i prefer them to the cars.
Someone in the federal govt has too much time on their hands. Advertising studies have shown that these are the kinds of messages you need on “billboards” to attract attention and improve retention.
Source? Link to a study?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250168757_Why_Do_Advertisers_Use_Puns_A_Linguistic_Perspective
So what? I don't give a shit what advertisers think they need to increase their profit.
These messages are more so safety PSAs. I saw one in Maine during the Fall that read "Use your blinkers, pumpkin spice drinkers." Or something to that effect.
pssst they're not taking about using it on advertisments
“Why are you trying to have the federal government come in and tell us what we can do in our own state? Prime example that the federal government is not focusing on what they need to be.”
For those down voting, this is straight from the article.
Isn't the point to keep drivers awake by entertaining them? I've always been told the challenge of long road driving is the monotonousity, and aside from that it's easier since everyone is travelling in the same direction at the same speed
Monotony
No, the point is to get people to pay attention to the sign.
A little humor helps.
It’s like the homeless guy with the sign that says “Why lie? I want beer.”
I've only given money to pan handlers twice.
The first time the guy came up and said, "Hey, man, got any spare change? Nigga needs to get drunk."
The second time was a group of guys searching for change in their car, and one asked if I had a quarter or something because they were trying to scrape together enough for a dime bag.
This was in Baton Rouge where every gas station had a resident drug addict with some crazy bullshit story about why they needed money, so I appreciated the honesty.
*sigh can't have any fun in the DOT I guess
Doesn't the Federal Highway Administration have anything better to do?
Good thing the locks on them are shitty and that they don't usually ever change the default password from 'DOTS.'
If the default password doesn't work, 'DIPY' as a password supposedly resets the password to the default 'DOTS.'
Citizens, together we can keep jokey signs on the roads.
Also, for a joke:
Ain't no Federal Highway Administration in the Constitution!
States Rights!!!!
States rights, federal money… that’s how they got the drinking age increased and the speed limits passed: “do it or we’ll yank your federal road money you get”
Ah so the holograms against the skyline of Night City of ad feed from the game 'Don't Build the Oppresionator' is being made, just on que.