(Editor’s note: In this article, the abbreviation “CEVMS” stands for “commercial electronic variable message signs” and is a term used by the federal government.)

The jig is up for Jerry Wachtel and his followers.

I came to this conclusion as I was re-reading one of the “research” reports co-authored by Wachtel on CEVMS in late August, as this column for October’s Sign & Digital Graphics was being prepared. Let’s take a look at how I got there. The bold-faced emphasis is mine.

Start with the footnote on page 25: “The definition of a ‘flashing sign’ is, even at present, in dispute.”

Beginning on page 40, the report notes: “a research approach that has been used with increasing sophistication and success over the last two decades, in examinations of the types of independent variables and driver behaviors of direct relevance to our present task. The methodology in question is the measurement of driver eye movements.”

Not to forget driver distraction due to the overload of stimuli, as reported on page 43: “Demands such as heavy traffic, complex interchanges and geometrics, lack of familiarity with the area, high prevailing speeds with considerable inter-vehicle variation, and adverse weather may interact to load the driver’s information processing capacity to its limits.”

THOSE OVERLOADED DRIVERS
And, then, as the Wachtel theory develops — bam! That poor driver gets smacked in the eyes with the horrible visual demands of a billboard or electric sign.

Now cue the restless murmurs of the citizens concerned about those dreaded CEVMS, whose very characteristics, as Wachtel notes, “makes it possible to use them in ways that can attract drivers’ attention at greater distances, hold their attention longer, and deliver a wider variety of information and image stimuli than is possible by the use of conventional advertising signs.”

A study is cited where accident rates on an urban highway were analyzed with an environment “further complicated by the presence of the variable message, alternating-light sign, could well have caused a perceptual overload of many drivers, especially under adverse weather and/or traffic conditions.”

What is an objective researcher to do? This report’s “Executive Summary” states that “although a trend in recent findings has begun to point to a demonstrable relationship between CEVMS and accidents, the available evidence remains statistically insufficient to scientifically support this relationship.”

Don’t keep teasing us, as with this language on page 45: “More will be said about flashing signs and lights, and about recommendations for needed research, later in this report.”

A SWIPE AT THE SIGN INDUSTRY
Before concluding, he first takes a good, long swipe at the on-premise sign industry and its deployment of CEVMS, starting on page 59:

“Claims of the electric signing industry that CEVMS should not be equated with earlier types of moving, flashing, scintillating and animated electric signs—all of which drew justified criticism when they proliferated in roadside areas—miss the central issue in this problem of defining government responsibility…

“Faced with a technology that enables signs to flash, change intensity, create apparent movement, and display an almost unlimited variety of information, the basic question is whether the limits on use should be determined by government regulation or by the judgment of individual advertisers.”

Now, in closing, yes! A recommendation for more research! On page 84, co-author Wachtel says that a “series of three research studies is recommended in order to obtain definitive answers to those safety and environmental questions raised in the body of the report which, after prolonged debate in the research literature, still are not settled.”

NEEDED: 3 MORE STUDIES
And when should we expect to see the results of these three studies? After all, the federally funded report I have just referenced so extensively was issued in June 1980—almost 30 years ago. (Citation is FHWA/RD-80/051.)

But here we are back to the future in October 2009 with—will wonders never cease—another federally funded report co-authored by Wachtel on “The Effects of Commercial Electronic Variable Message Signs (CEVMS) on Driver Attention and Distraction: An Update.” (Citation is FHWA-HRT-09-018.)

The new report’s abstract says it is “an update of earlier published work, a review of applicable research methods and techniques, recommendations for future research, and an extensive bibliography.” It points to a set of “alternative research strategies.” And voila! “Based on these strategies, as well as on the review of the literature, a proposed three stage program of research has been developed to address the solution.”

Rules of the game: When in doubt, propose three more studies. And keep rolling those federally funded reports down the roadside. This isn’t science; it is a cottage industry.

But sign companies are on to Wachtel and his followers. I doubt that anyone would reasonably argue that he has no right to claim distinction as a human factors expert, one of many in the United States, nor would it be argued that he does not have a resume of many publications and presentations.

However, the industry—both off-premise and on-premise—does object to Wachtel being both judge and jury, setting up the parameters of the discussion on digital displays and the relationship to driver distraction, and then ascertaining that those parameters are reasonable, and no one need question their fairness.

Wachtel, now the sole author of a brand-new report published in April, does not hide his bias toward on-premise signs. He states, “For transportation agencies and traffic safety organizations concerned about the risks of driver distraction, digital on-premise signs should not be overlooked as a potentially important near-term concern.”

Shouldn’t that sentence really read, “Digital on-premise signs should not be overlooked as a potentially important source of more research funding”?

I note, with some amusement, that in one of Wachtel’s presentations in June 2009, he included a slide entitled “My Biases” (see copy of slide accompanying this column). “Our speaker today, the nation’s leading, fair and balanced arbitrator of what constitutes driver distraction.”

The slide shows that Wachtel says he worked for NESA to show how balanced his experience is. The problem is that there is no National Electric Sign Association and hasn’t been since the last century.

Wachtel should stick with Scenic America meetings, where he spoke at an anti-digital sign gathering earlier this summer. But he needs to quit trying to present himself as an objective researcher. His 30 years of anti-sign bias is the real story here. Enough.