GREAT MOMENTS IN GOVERNMENT FAILURE.

Your tax dollars at work.  "Feds are banning humorous electronic messages on highways."  Predictably, it takes an army of bureaucrats to get the process right.

The Federal Highway Administration recently released an updated 1,100-page manual that spells out how signs and other traffic control devices are regulated. In it, the agency strongly recommends against overhead electronic signs with obscure meanings, references to pop culture or those intended to be funny.

Rather, signs should be “simple, direct, brief, legible and clear,” when relaying important information like warning drivers of crashes overhead, adverse weather conditions and traffic delays, the agency said. Seatbelt reminders and warnings about the dangers of speeding or driving impaired are allowed.

Never mind that amusing signs might have an effect on reducing road rage.

SLOW DOWN, PA!
SAKES ALIVE
MA MISSED SIGNS
FOUR
AND FIVE!

No, they've got to be boring.  "Just days before Christmas, Grundy County, which is southwest of Chicago, put up two digital signs along Interstate 55 to deter buses from stopping in the fairly rural area."  As if those warnings, whether amusingly worded (and Illinois have some creatives creating the copy) or not won't raise the blood pressure of Normals.

There are creatives at work on the winning side of the Cheddar Curtain as well.  "Whether you find them hilarious or cringey, if you've spent time driving on Wisconsin's highways, you've probably seen the Wisconsin Department of Transportation's witty overhead signs creatively urging citizens to drive safely and sober. "Some of them are seasonal.  "That's the temperature, not the speed limit" for the summer. "You are not a turkey, don't drive basted" for Thanksgiving. "Hocus pocus, drive with focus." Presumably the killjoys in Washington would object even more if that one put in a muggle reference. And yes, the creativity was deliberate.

In 2020, the Sheboygan Press interviewed Jon Riemann, a Sheboygan native and WisDOT's communications manager at the time. Part of Riemann's job included writing the jokes and puns for overhead highway messages.

He said the messages were planned two months in advance and were a collaborative effort between him, law enforcement, traffic safety engineers, civil engineers and the office assistant.

Not bad for people without MFA degrees. They had one for Talk Like a Pirate Day. "ARRR ye buckled up, mateys?" And getting to deer camp matters. "Make it to deer camp, drive sober."

Our Intellectual Betters, undoubtedly, make the wisdom of Ronald Reagan's "Government is the problem" more likely than not to resonate.

States around the country have used quirky messaging to draw the attention of drivers. Among them: “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.

Arizona has more than 300 electronic signs above its highways. For the last seven years, the Arizona Department of Transportation has held a contest to find the funniest and most creative messages.

Anyone could submit ideas, drawing more than 3,700 entries last year. The winners were “Seatbelts always pass a vibe check” and “I’m just a sign asking drivers to use turn signals.”

“The humor part of it, we kind of like,” said state Rep. David Cook, a Republican from Globe, told Phoenix TV station CBS 5. “I think in Arizona the majority of us do, if not all of us.”

The good news is, mockery still works.  From the Associated Press:  "This story has been updated to correct that the Federal Highway Administration does not ban the use of humorous and quirky messages on electronic signs. It strongly recommends avoiding them."

I still miss William Proxmire and Citizens against Government Waste.  A thousand page manual dedicated to Properly Serious Highway Signage surely rates honorable mention in the Golden Fleece Awards or an entry in the Pig Book.