Bin the billboards, the jokes, and the Chevy Trax.
Dominic Pino and Jack Butler have debated whether highway signage ought to be filled with bad jokes about drunk driving and looking at one’s phone. Let’s consider.
Jack is in favor of right-lane ribaldry, writing:
Last month, the Federal Highway Administration announced new regulations (in a 1,110-page manual) for, among other things, overhead signage. In 2026, highway signs will no longer be permitted to be funny, obscure, or allusive, supposedly because “they can be misunderstood or distracting to drivers.” . . .
This is a dumb decision that only a highly technocratic mind would consider smart. Drivers are more likely to pay attention to unexpectedly amusing messages than to boring, technical text they’ve seen before.
While Dominic would prefer things stay platonic in the HOV lane, writing:
I hope the FHWA also bans the practice of using these signs to display the total number of highway deaths so far that year. That’s not useful information to drivers, and the mere distraction of the sign might cause more accidents.
Instead of using these signs for nanny-state purposes or jokes, states should use them to convey straightforward information about the traffic. If there’s nothing important to say about the traffic, turn them off so they aren’t a distraction. It’s not the government’s job to scold you or to be funny.
I appreciate Butler’s desire to increase the humor of the everyday, while I find myself agreeing with Dominic but thinking he doesn’t go nearly far enough. Really, there shouldn’t be any nonessential signage at all on or along the roadways, to include: billboards, sandwich boards, political screeds, or diner neon. There shouldn’t be a single thing on the interstate system that isn’t there to explicitly convey road conditions, location, and closures.
While some might complain about such a roadside purification project limiting speech, I’m of the mind that billboards are the equivalent of a guy standing on the highway’s apron and hollering at you as you drive past — it’s unintelligible and distracting. We legislate what can be done in a vehicle at every turn — and demand that one register oneself with the state and prove competency to use these roads in a motor vehicle — and yet we’re cool with leering 14′x48′ signs suggesting to drivers the adult gift shop just south of Fond du Lac? Signs whose only purpose is to titillate drivers trapped on that stretch of asphalt?
From what I can tell, operators of multi-ton machines have enough distraction without also dealing with the intrusion of signage whose sole purpose is to divert them with thoughts of food, sex, and realty — not one of which makes these drivers more aware of their surroundings.
Bin the billboards, the jokes, and the Chevy Trax.