Annoyingly useless Amber Alert sign language devolving into trivia

Ashton Crusher

2014-05-09 00:16:49 UTC

On Thu, 8 May 2014 17:40:27 +0000 (UTC), Pat Wilson

Post by Pat Wilson
California is back on the "brush your teeth" campaign with the Amber Alert
signs that we all pay for to install, operate, and maintain;
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5454/13951706528_461bb9e146_b.jpg
Notwithstanding the fact that 99% of the time these Amber Alert signs
are used for non-emergency trivia (e.g., "keep to the right"), and that
3/4 of the 1% of the time they're actually used for an Amber Alert,
it's a hoax or otherwise false alarm, we really don't need to be
SERIOUS DROUGHT HELP SAVE WATER
Does anyone know how to put a stop to this bombardment of trivia?
(What grade are officials in who decide what to put on these signs?)

In my experience at a state DOT, here's how it works, there are two
kinds of people within the DOT, the actual experts on signage who know
that it is stupid to put this kind of crap up on the signs because it
dilutes their value... people see this crap and come to think of the
signs as displaying useless crap messages.. so when a needed message
is put up a lot of people, used to seeing crap on there 90% of the
time, just ignore it figuring it's more crap. The traffic engineering
folks know all this.

Then there are the "higher ups" in the front office and the "media and
PR" folks in the Public Affairs office. They see these signs as a
way to garner attention, they think people will see these crap
messages and think "OH WOW, the DOT is really on top of things, what a
wonderful group they are telling us about the drought and the need to
carpool and to not drive drunk." oowww, what a great publicity
tool!!!

In some DOTs the actual experts carry the day and you don't see much
of this crap, but in other DOTs the "front office/PR folks" demean the
traffic experts as "they don't know how PR works, etc" and convince
management to let them put up that kind of crap.