No joke: Feds are banning humorous electronic messages on highways
No joke: Feds are banning humorous electronic messages on highways
Humorous and quirky messages on electronic signs will soon be disappearing from highways and freeways across the country. The U.S.
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!
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
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.
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
*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.