The U.S. Federal Highway Administration has ordered that electronic highway signs be free of humor or quirky messages. It’s too distracting and it contravenes its new 1,100-page manual of regulations.
Among those that will be disappearing are messages such as “Use Yah Blinkah” in Massachusetts; “Visiting in-laws? Slow down, get there late,” from Ohio; “Don’t drive Star Spangled Hammered,” from Pennsylvania; “Hocus pocus, drive with focus” from New Jersey; and “Hands on the wheel, not your meal” from Arizona.
Something trés American about the government banning electronic signs that try to save your life (or that of the beloved monarch butterfly!) with eye-catching messages, while massive electronic advertising billboards loom behind them with far more distracting text and graphics, if not actual video.
