A reader named Matt W. wrote in with an interesting idea:
I drove from Cincinnati to Hilton Head, S.C., recently. When we were going through the Smoky Mountains, the highway had “No Trucks This Lane” painted on it.
The words were painted in large bold letters so they were easy to read. It made me wonder why they don’t allow advertising painted right on the road. It wouldn’t be more distracting than the many billboards that are all over the place. Couldn’t this be a tremendous source of ad revenue for the state and federal governments?
They could define some parameters around it. Perhaps none could be painted on the roads in congested areas — maybe only have one per mile. No alcohol or cigarette ads of course.
What do blog readers think? Is this is good idea? Is there enough revenue potential to make it worth doing? Are there legal issues? Is this already being done anywhere?
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The road is for road signs that are informative while you drive. Billboards have their place and you know that they’re advertising. Once they start mixing the ads with the important information, you’ll start to tune out both. Which is bad.
Bad idea all around. I want the billboards off the road too, really.
No, No, No, No, No, No, No!
Must we allow advertising everywhere? Can’t there be any “commons” left among us that isn’t sold off to a private interest?
Also, even if it’s not distracting of itself, it would reduce the effectiveness of the very message you cite, “No Trucks This Lane.” Only messages regarding safety and smooth traffic flow should be allowed on the common structures; that way we can easily identify them as official messages and attend to them appropriately.
It’d require closing the lane (and basically stalling the entire traffic flow) to install, update, or maintain them, eh?
And it’d be dangerous to do such a thing at non-peak times, like night.
It could be a real money saver for government if road maintenance where passed on to the advertisers.
Horrible idea, sorry.
Billboards aren’t distracting because people can ignore them if they so choose. Ads on the road would be terribly distracting.
Anyway, I suspect that laying them out so that they could be read by those rapidly approaching them would make them simply big eye-sores.
You mentioned putting them in congested areas. Wouldn’t the cars ahead of you keep you from reading the ad?
Again, horrible idea. But novel, which is great!
They do this with signs in Colorado where a road is “sponsored”. So you will have a sign, about the size of a “no parking” sign, that are on local roads and highways. If you are in Denver check it out when you are driving on I-25 between downtown and the tech center.
They only catch your eye occasionally. I pretty much don’t recognize them on my commute anymore (they are usually in the right lane, and I’m impatient). They don’t cause any additional delays or hazards.
Painted roads would be more noticable but I don’t think it would generate any more revenue than signs.
Here’s another thought. How about a congestion fee structure where you can either pay a fee or allow adverts on your car to drive in the city? I have a beater so any sort of graphic would be an upgrade (though I’m not sure I would accept a Viagra ad).
There are a few things that come to mind. The first is with the crackdown on cell phone use and other distractions while driving, this would seem rather hypocritical. Next, with rush hour traffic, it would be pointless. People would not see the ads.
Finally, imagine a picture of an ugly car wreck with an advertisement implanted on the road in the road in foreground. I don’t think that would be good for business!
Why not just cut out the middleman (ie the advertising company and advertiser) and have the consumer just pay the road owner (the government) for the upkeep of roads? Oh wait don’t they do that already, I think they are called ‘tolls’ and ‘taxes’.