Omaha By Design - The Public Space

Signs of the Times
by Ken Mayer

A few years ago, a court case arose in Texas from a car crash at an airport caused by a driver reading an electronic sign that listed departure and gate information. The driver stopped his vehicle to read the sign, and a second car swerved around him and sideswiped a vehicle in the adjacent lane, resulting in a three-car crash. Two drivers were injured and sued the airline that owned the electronic billboard. A jury found that the sign was the indirect cause of a multiple-vehicle crash. The airport subsequently removed the billboard.

This incident, reported in the Federal Highway Administration’s “Research Review of Potential Safety Effects of Electronic Billboards on Driver Attention and Distraction” in late 2001, may be a sign (pun intended) of things to come. The appearance of the electronic billboards in Omaha raises a lot of issues, including safety, aesthetics and advertising effectiveness.

To check out the situation, I took a Sunday afternoon drive around town. I started where Dodge Street crosses I-480 at 28th and drove west to I-680 south, merged onto I-80 east and back to I-480 north to complete my circuit.

As I drove, I counted billboards and found that our fair city sports no less than 125 along this heavily traveled loop. Twenty shouted about restaurants (mostly fast food), 16 were public service ads, 11 were medical services (perhaps to repair the damage done by that fast food), and phone services and casinos each appeared 8 times. These were all the old fashioned kind of billboards, the kind that originated before the advent of cup holders and cell phones.

As I drove, watching in horror as the driver of the car following me too closely took her other hand off the steering wheel to gesture during her phone call, I wondered – do we really need another more powerful distraction out here?

As a former marketing director I’m loathe to suggest that any advertising media be regulated, but I think this is an exception. And so do a lot of others.

The FHWA research as far back as 2001 found that of 42 states:

Thirty-six states had prohibitions on signs with red, flashing, intermittent or moving lights.
Twenty-nine states prohibited signs that were so illuminated as to obscure or interfere with traffic control devices.
Twenty-nine states prohibited signs located on interstate or primary highway outside of the zoning authority of incorporated cities within 500 feet of an interchange or intersection at grade or safety roadside area.

A survey of current regulatory discussions by the website publication mediabuyerplanner.com last year found:

The Cook County (Illinois) board voted to reject zoning applications for a pair of digital billboards along the new Interstate Highway 355 where it crosses the Des Plaines River.
Mobile (Alabama) City Council members have rejected a proposed 120-day moratorium on new electronic billboards. An outdoor advertising company general manager who sits on the council refused to vote in favor of the moratorium, even after council members said they would grant exceptions to two electronic billboards his company had already ordered.
The Texas Transportation Department received more than 480 letters during the three-month period that ended earlier this month; of those 386 were against digital billboards. All but one of the 241 comments received from billboard industry interests supported the signs.
Following protests from neighborhood councils and community activists, the Los Angeles City Council has postponed consideration of a south L.A. park project that included the allowance of several new billboards, including two digital ones, alongside the freeway downtown.
Albany (Georgia) City Commissioners voted for a 60-day moratorium on digital sign permits in order to review its sign ordinance and determine how to regulate “the new advertising technology.”
In Quakertown, Pennsylvania, two 20-foot high electronic roadside signs will soon go up on Route 309, despite opposition from locals.

Clearly, the electronic billboard has raised concerns in a lot places. Omaha needs to do the right thing. Please attend Omaha by Design’s public forum on electronic billboards July 29 at UNO.

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