USA: Feds want to ban funny road signs on highways

Having a funnier sign makes it more memorable, increasing the potential of the message being received better.

According to a media report, the Federal Highway Administration, a sub-section of the US Department of Transportation (DOT), has issued a new guideline banning funny road signs on US interstates & state highways, claiming that they are distracting.

These road signs on highways displayed via variable message signs (VMS) often display warnings to drivers regarding delays, adverse weather conditions and crashes. Sometimes the state has fun with the messages displayed, working subtle jokes into them. State DOTs argue that irrespective of humour or lack thereof, drivers take their eyes off the road to read the messages. Having a funnier sign makes it more memorable, increasing the potential of the message being received better.

Reports even state examples of the playful messages, some of them being genuinely funny. One such example is an Ohio VMS displaying -"Visiting in-laws? Slow down, get there late." Another is from Mississippi -"100 is the temperature, not the speed limit."

However, a legitimate issue with these lighthearted road signs is that if a message is too funny or popular, drivers could end up taking out their phones while behind the wheel to take pictures.

Tripp Shealy, a Virginia Tech professor of civil & environmental engineering, stated that there is merit to the fact that humourous signs do get across their messages better. Shealy's study even measured blood flow to the prefrontal cortex to determine which signs received the most cognitive attention. The result, funnier messages do the trick. She stated, "My recommendation would be that they’re useful, and humour should be allowed, from what we studied."

Source: WallStreetJournal