No joke: Feds are banning humorous electronic messages on highways | Hacker News Reader

No joke: Feds are banning humorous electronic messages on highways

nbcnews.com

15 pointsjawns51 comments

It's about time! I have been a curmudgeon about this ever since I saw my first "To the left, to the left / Passing only in the lane to the left."

Not only are these signs not that funny, but they're likely to be confusing to lots of people -- immigrants, the elderly, those who aren't up on pop culture and have no idea that it's a nod to a Beyoncé song. Road signs should be clear and direct.

Traffic officials should save their lame attempts at humor for their social media accounts.

For your example, I just wanna say that even for people who don't get the reference, it still made sense.

And honestly, a little humour shouldn't be worrying.

these are not the ONLY signs. They’re signs that usually are used for showing construction or travel times or burn bans or other weird things the government wants to convey.

“Immigrants” aren’t stupid, and despite what some might think, do have the full ability to engage in normal human behaviors like humor.

Edit: I think some of you are confused about this story. This has nothing to do with the normal road signs that are meant to be used for navigation etc. These are things which are usually blank, and sometimes turned on for information about road construction or things like that: https://www.kbtx.com/2024/01/17/no-joke-feds-are-banning-fun...

Some people in the DOT realized they could put something kind of funny on them to encourage people to do stuff like wear their seatbelts, or not speed, or put messages discouraging drunk driving.

The person you’re responding to is talking specifically about the 'funny' signs, not the "signs that usually are used for showing construction or travel times or burn bans or other weird things the government wants to convey."

> “Immigrants” aren’t stupid, and despite what some might think, do have the full ability to engage in normal human behaviors like humor.

Nobody's saying they're stupid or don’t have a sense of humor, just that they may not have the cultural prerequisites to immediately understand certain jokes. Especially in a medium that is terrible for telling jokes.

Those signs are the same signs. They’re digital signs above the freeway. Sometimes they say travel times and info about burn bans, other times they have silly puns about not drinking and driving, or not passing on the left.

I don’t think the implication was that immigrants are stupid or unable to engage in humor, but rather that English might not be their native language and that they may not be as familiar with pop culture references.

The implication is that someone not versed in the language may only get the first part of the message, or the word “left” and move over to the left - exactly the opposite of what they want.

Traffic signs have a very short time to be seen and recognized; you want every aspect of it including partial readings to be as correct as you can.

> do have the full ability to engage in normal human behaviors like humor.

Sure, nobody is saying they are here. What we are saying is that it can be likely that it would take someone who is ESL more time to parse humor or a joke, or the elderly, or even those with English as a first language. That time is best _not_ spent while you're operating a multi thousand pound weapon down a highway at 70MPH, where reaction times are a must and this is distracting.

Hey if you’re going to push to ban billboard, or writing on the sides of semi trucks, or giant signs on the buildings near freeways you absolutely have my support.

Absolutely, frankly. One step at a time, this is a win, and where I live advertising billboards _are_ banned. There's only one in the entire city, and it was grandfathered in.

I am immigrant, and I like "stupid" simple messages. Renting car, driving car in strange environment, dealing with speed limits, road signs in foreign language, new weather like snow... It is all already pretty stressful.

I really do not care about your stupid local humor while driving. I do not follow TV or pop music. I do not get the "references". The same way you would not get Chinese humour.

> "To the left, to the left / Passing only in the lane to the left."

I would probably read only the first part, and assume right lane is closed. Or even worse, I would be like "oh shit they drive like in UK"!!!!

Well the good news is that all of the normal signs that tell you stuff like that are still there, and these humorous messages on the digital signs above the freeway have absolutely nothing to do with those.

So if digital board says something like "icy road" or "collision ahead" I should just ignore that as "humorous" message? It should provide real time useful information, not some BS advertising!

Imigrants are not stupid, people who listen to Beyonce are!

Doesn’t this basically conclude with “don’t let immigrants drive at all”?

If you can’t parse the difference between “collision ahead” and “use yah blinkah”, then you shouldn’t be driving at all.

“Immigrants” are not uniquely unable to parse these things.

Do you know anything about usability? And relative cultural meanings?

About 1.5 billion people drive on left (India, UK, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia....). Road sign "to the left" has VERY important meaning for big part of globe. Some people travel a lot and change left/right driving a few times every month..

But perhaps Beyonce songs and American pop culture, should be part of driving exams globally! So everyone can parse your "funny" jokes.

These signs are above the freeway. There is no way to drive on the wrong side of the freeway once you are already on it.

The people writing these messages are part of the DOT. Not surprisingly they already think of this stuff. They’re not stupid.

The Beyoncé example is maybe not well known enough, but most of the time something that makes you smile is good: it's easier to remember an idea from a catchy funny phrase than a generic administrative wording.

At least those seem to be additional signs, they add some information, they don't provide main/mandatory/security information.

> something that makes you smile is good

But something that keeps drivers’ eyes on the road is safer. It’s a trade off: a minor increase in excitement for a minor decrease in safety

These don’t take your eyes off the road. They are literally right above the road. Unless you have such severe tunnel vision that you shouldn’t be driving at all, it would be impossible not to see these, so long as you were focused on the road.

In UK they have signs that say "to the left"! Some people may get confused and panic for a moment. It is incredibly stupid and dangerous!

> those who aren’t up on pop culture

Same reason I dislike google doodles; not only am I not up on pop culture, I very much don’t want to be.

>Same reason I dislike google doodles; not only am I not up on pop culture, I very much don’t want to be.

"I don't own a TV"

Google doodles are hardly "pop culture"; they often honour scientists, artists etc. The point is to raise awareness. Seems like a strange thing to outwardly "dislike".

An interest in science and art is not something most of us need to be reminded about; it’s the default. At best doodles are mildly informative, but mostly they’re patronising distractions.

> An interest in science and art is not something most of us need to be reminded about; it’s the default.

It really isn't.

At least you can click on a doodle and get the context

Road safety:

- What is "right of way"?

- Would a Beyoncé reference confuse you while driving?

They ought to ban overly long messages that require being broken up into multiple flashing parts, or any other flashing of the signs, or any overly bright luminence of the signs.

I've seen so many traffic jams caused by flashing signs, overly bright signs that get too much attention, or multi part messages that people get distracted by.

Yeah, the worst it’s when you see the message change and have to wait for it to change back. Takes a lot of brain cycles away from driving.

"hands on the wheel, not your meal" is concise & slogans have a ring to them, there's a reason political campaigns want simple slogans to stick in someone's mind

I think this is silly. That said...

> “Why are you trying to have the federal government come in and tell us what we can do in our own state? Prime example that the federal government is not focusing on what they need to be.”

My guy, you're welcome to decline Federal highway funding.

There is value in discussing when the federal government is potentially overstepping.

I'm very curious about whether this new rule stems from accident data near the funny signs, and I wish the article had dug into that question a bit.

FOIA request? :) https://www.muckrock.com/ Enable crowdfund mode for the request and I'll pay the $5.

In practical terms this is like saying "you're welcome to decline food". Part of the argument for limiting federal government in the first place is to prevent this kind of arm twisting.

> In practical terms this is like saying "you're welcome to decline food".

And that's true. Federal road funding for highways comes with some specific regulations and conditions, on signage, minimum bridge heights, etc. To extend the food analogy, if someone's gifting you free food, it's probably a bit rude to complain you don't like the parsley garnish.

This misses the point, you can't actually decline this funding. The federal government taxes it out of your state and then gives it back to you with conditions sidestepping the fact it would be brazenly unconstitutional for the federal government to institute these rules directly.

Trump poked the bear with this one by trying to withhold unrelated federal funding to sanctuary cities and Obama got made folks really mad when he tried it with the ACA.

You absolutely can. States did exactly that with Medicaid expansion funding; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid_coverage_gap

This would be an even bigger waste than that, given the relatively small condition being applied, but opting out for ideological reasons is clearly doable.

You're making a thing that's grey out to be black and white. You can impose conditions on money that is deemed by a court to actually be feasible to decline which is why medicaid expansion was ruled constitutional but tying those conditions to medicaid funding in its entirety would have likely been slapped down based on the opinions after the case.

And with this court who has an axe to grind with expansion of federal power I expect the bar is much lower now.

> My guy, you're welcome to decline Federal highway funding.

Everyone keeps blathering about "states rights"... but these have been moot ever since the Minimum Drinking Age Act, in which the federal government got its way by what is essentially extortion [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_...

Paid for by citizens in your state.

My guy you're free to decline conscription and impressment and the draft. You'll just end up dead or in jail!

No, you're not free to decline conscription. You'd go to jail.

Similarly, "free speech" doesn't mean you can't be fired for it, but it does mean you can't be criminally punished for it. Nothing in the Constitution requires the Federal government to pay for a state's highways.

The federal government doesn't pay for anything, the citizens do

If you're going to take that approach, said citizens elected successive governments that set up and sustained the regulatory regime that leads us right back to this point.

The gun points one way

I agree, and there is great value in standardizing traffic control devices across state lines.

Which is paid for by an outflow of money in the form of taxes (of various types)

My guy, this is called extortion.

There's extensive legal jurisprudence saying otherwise, including in the specific case of interstate highway funding. (As pointed out elsewhere in the comments; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_... / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Dakota_v._Dole)

I don’t really see how “I’ll give you money to build roads as long as you don’t put silly signs on those roads” counts as extortion.

>My guy, you're welcome to decline Federal highway funding.

Wait until you see what happens if universal basic income becomes a thing.

Some states declined the ACA's Medicaid expansion, at great cost to their citizens. I'd fully expect some to do the same with UBI if administered in similarly state-managed but Federally-funded fashion.

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