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.
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
This is why I close my eyes when I drive, so they can’t force the billboards into my brain.
Clown college? Pfft, you can’t eat that
I could get behind that, but I was more pointing out the hypocrisy rather than endorsing billboards
I can see how someone whose first language isn’t English could have a hard time telling if an official sign is an important message or a humorous one. That’s not an issue for billboards because those never have important information.
This is exactly what it is. Nothing stopping these local highway patrol and safety departments from erecting electronic signs on the side of the highway for all their cute messages.
It’s that they’re using the big electronic ones that are overhead while driving which should be uniformly easy to understand, simple, and official.
Basically, if there’s a message on a sign above the actual road and it takes you more than a second to understand what it’s trying to say, it needs to be revamped.
It’s not hypocrisy because the signs they’re talking about are not in the same places as billboards. There are regulations about how far back billboards have to be. The signs in question here are the ones that are actually over the road or literally on the side of it, not 20 yards back.
And part of the reason that they don’t let billboards just hover literally over top of the roads is because they’re distracting. Signage that is on the road needs to have an official purpose and convey information that is relevant to the driver, and that information has to be delivered in a simple, uniform, and clear manner.
They are in Vermont. Be the change you want to see!
Several other states too. Not enough.
Oh? I thought Vermont was unique in that! Still, as you said, definitely not enough…
I’ll even settle for turning off electronic ones at sunset
Yeah but those make them monies
Yes, but that would anger the corporate overlords, and we simply can’t have that, can we?
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.