‘Tis the season for shopping and sing-alongs, holiday parties and heavy tipplers — and, on the highway, slick roads, lane closures and lost composure. The Vermont Agency of Transportation knows you want to be good — road rage tops its naughty list — so staffers are composing roadside messages that may crack you up and help avoid a crack-up.
GOBBLE GOBBLE, EASE UP ON THE THROTTLE
VISITING YOUR IN-LAWS? SLOW DOWN, BE LATE
VTrans employee Rachel Noyes’ medium is the median. She believes that a chuckle will produce a buckle and that a laugh can lighten the foot on the gas. Nominally, Noyes is the outreach manager in the agency’s Operations and Safety Bureau, but her superpower, she said, is crafting short, witty messages “encouraging Vermonters to do the right thing.”
IF YOU HATE SPEEDING, RAISE YOUR RIGHT FOOT
For the past several years, VTrans has deployed scores of portable electronic message boards across Vermont highways displaying jokes to encourage safe driving. Being Vermonters — which is to say, proudly unconventional — agency staffers kicked to the side of the road the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s finger-wagging messaging style:
DRIVE SOBER
FAST DRIVE COULD BE YOUR LAST DRIVE
“We created a whole new media program called Drive Well Vermont, and it encourages Vermonters to take responsibility for their own safe driving behavior instead of us just telling drivers what they’re doing wrong,” Noyes explained.
In 2021, Vermonters got their first glimpse of the highway revelry through the comic stylings of Noyes and later Ian Kilburn, her division chief. The first bonbon out of the box on Valentine’s Day was this:
VALENTINE, YOUR SEAT BELT WILL HOLD YOU
A collective aw rippled through the Brave Little State. “We got a massive response, and I think it was because this was the first time for many people to see such messages on the side of the road,” Noyes said. “And we just started building from that.”
Messages are typically composed of two parts — setup and punch line — and are brainstormed by division staff. Noyes generally develops a list of slogans and sends it to Kilburn, who reviews them with his team and adds his own. The final choices go to upper management to make sure the language hasn’t crossed the line into oncoming blowback.
90 IS THE TEMPERATURE, NOT THE SPEED LIMIT
VTrans has about 100 of these solar-powered mobile signs and estimated that between 80 and 90 are currently deployed. Most, but not all, are on Vermont’s two interstates, with some placed on secondary roads to announce closures due to flooding, for example. Many were used during April’s solar eclipse, when Vermonters were urged to observe in place.
HUNKER DOWN, STAY IN TOWN
Kilburn noted that the message boards are dark most of the time.
“Generally, they are not illuminated,” he said. “When people drive by, we want them to see the boards and notice them. But if they’re on all the time, motorists get a little fatigued of them and tend to tune out.”
Without citing a cause, VTrans reported fewer fatal crashes in 2023 than in the previous two years.
“One of the luxuries of not being a billboard state is that when these messages are out there and they are lit, people see them,” Kilburn said. “And so we want these messages to grab them and be something different, to have people smile.”
CAMP IN THE WOODS — NOT THE LEFT LANE
In January, however, the fun police took issue with the verbiage in Vermont and other states. The Federal Highway Administration concluded that driving while chuckling was incompatible with highway safety and discouraged offbeat messaging that could drive motorists to distraction. The resulting outcry was swift and widespread from agencies nationwide. A runaway truck tire is a distraction, ditto a naked hitchhiker. But a seven-word slogan scanned while moving at 65 miles per hour?
Amid criticism, the feds were forced to walk back that draconian declaration, but Vermont had already decided to take its own road.
VTrans opted “to forge on as we have,” Kilburn declared. “We are not removing the more witty safety messaging. We’re not going to stray away from that.”
With the heart of the holiday season approaching, Noyes and Kilburn are making their list and checking it twice, cracking wise to keep you safe on the highways. So keep an eye out — but not for too long — for the coming Christmas chuckles from VTrans:
BEST UNOPENED GIFT? YOUR AIRBAG
SANTA SEES YOU WHEN YOU’RE SPEEDING
ONLY RUDOLPH SHOULD DRIVE LIT
The original print version of this article was headlined “Signs of the Times | VTrans makes the season bright — and safe — with funny highway slogans”
This article appears in Dec 11-17, 2024.
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
