Sign Law & Policy

Outrageous and dangerous. There are no other ways to describe the suppression of federal research, existing since 2003, that concluded driving while using a cellphone significantly increases the risk of a crash.

More dangerous than two rowdy children in the back seat?

With the support of publications, such as the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, the Center for Auto Safety was finally granted a federal Freedom of Information request that revealed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration – for political reasons – sat on research that cellphone use while driving could be as fatal as drunk driving.

See the research summaries for yourself at this link to the Center for Auto Safety: http://www.autosafety.org/foia-reveals-cell-phone-studies.

FINDINGS SUPPRESSED FOR POLITICAL REASONS
So what are those political reasons for suppressing these critical findings? The agency did not want to offend its friends in Congress, particularly those on committees appropriating its funding. Thus, the draft warning on cellphone use while driving from the NHTSA was never circulated.

Would it be reasonable to think the cellphone industry’s lobbyists had plenty of interest in this research? Mike Goodman, who then was involved with the NHTSA research, told The New York Times that the “industry frequently checked in with him about the project and his progress.”

Fast forward to 2009. The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute just released findings, based on an 18-month study of truck drivers, that concluded texting while driving increased the risk of collision by 23 times. See http://www.vtti.vt.edu/PDF/7-22-09-VTTI-Press_Release_Cell_phones_and_Driver_Distraction.pdf.

So why do I dwell on driver distraction research, both the research that is published and the horrible withholding of research back in 2003? Because there are other “federally funded” studies that purport to prove (although it seems that they are working overtime to do so) that digital billboards, including on-premise displays, cause driver distraction and, thus, should be restricted.

DRIVER DISTRACTION HAS MANY CAUSES - BUT READING A SIGN?
Driver distraction is a real issue. Look at the chart accompanying this column for results from an often-cited 2002 study from Virginia Commonwealth University. The leading cause of car crashes involving driver distraction (as opposed to drunk driving, road rage, defective auto, etc.)? Rubbernecking!

We all could compile our own lists. A cup of coffee spilled on your lap. Fiddling with the new GPS system in the car. Turning around to yell at your kids in the back seat. Reading the content on a billboard or sign? Didn’t make the list.

But - beware - those nice people at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the agency that couldn’t get motivated to warn of real driving dangers six years ago, suddenly have awakened to the dangers of digital billboards.

In a report released in April 2008, it reviewed the “current state of knowledge” on driver distraction and noted that “a potentially important source of distraction involves advertising signage, which is becoming both more prevalent and more dynamic and thus potentially more effective at capturing drivers’ attention in certain areas.”

Even more threatening is a report released just this April, authored by the “human factors” consultant, Jerry Wachtel, on the “safety impacts of the emerging digital technology for outdoor advertising signs.” See a copy of the full report at the Web site of Scenic America, surely no friend to the billboard industry: http://www.scenic.org/pdfs/NCHRP%20Digital%20Billboard%20Report.pdf.

DOES THE MERE LENGTH OF A REPORT PROVE ITS FINDINGS?
The Wachtel report, all 194 pages, is being bandied about as some kind of “proof” that digital billboards cause traffic accidents. The report is devastating in its disregard for “industry-supported” research with findings that show no causal relationship between digital displays and accidents.

Yet Wachtel ruminates early in the report, “Our greatest concern is with the industry’s efforts to raise the bar that research must meet before, in their view, digital billboards could be found to have adverse traffic safety effects.” So here we have a consultant, receiving tens of thousands of federal dollars, already complaining that the outdoor advertising industry wants the same research to actually prove what Wachtel thinks the safety impact of digital displays is.

This may not be the last we hear from Wachtel this year. There appears to be research quietly being conducted that will trace eye movement inside a car when viewing a digital billboard. Let’s see what happens this fall on that front.

In the interim, know that digital billboards are under assault. Yet, if past commentary from Wachtel is any indicator of new interests, the on-premise sign industry will come into his gun sights soon.

THE ON-PREMISE SIGN INDUSTRY IS UP NEXT
Section 7 of the April 2009 Wachtel report addresses “digital billboards on-premise and on the right-of-way.” Here is Wachtel’s theory - by the way, unproven - on why digital billboard research should be extrapolated to on-premise signs, “From the traffic safety perspective, it is possible that the risk of driver inattention and distraction is higher for some on-premise signs than for some DBBs, because on-premise signs may be larger and closer to the road, mounted at elevations closer to the approaching driver’s eye level, and placed at angles that may require excessive head movements.”

Now all proponents of this new theory need are more federal research dollars - money that in 2003 could not warn of the severe danger of driving while using a cellphone. There surely seems to be an agenda to rid or significantly restrict legal advertising products. Is this agenda truly out of concern for the public safety or possibly motivated by a disdain for marketing in the public arena?

I don’t know the answer to this question. But I do know that it is worth asking over and over again as new “federally funded” research is unveiled.