No more "Use Yah Blinkah?"

banned electronic billboards, which are way more of a distraction.

Banning the cutesy phrases is the right move. Not everyone is aware of the jokes and they lose meaning if people start questioning if there's some unimportant local reference they don't get.

There are 1000 other places for MassDOT to be playful. Leave the overhead signs for boring text but import messages. (They should be blank unless there's an urgent message to disperse.)

I'm fine with banning any intentionally distracting signage, especially if it prompts motorists to pull out their phones to take photos or video instead of watching where they're going.

Back in the 1970s, a radio jingle group called TM Productions put together a nice jingle for radio stations to do their weekly testing of the Emergency Broadcast System (predecessor to the Emergency Alert System of today - link: WHEN Syracuse EBS jingle), full of early 1970s Moog synthesizer and four-part harmony goodness.

The FCC took a listen to this, and stated that EBS tests could not be sung or joked about, no matter how light-hearted or catchy it was, so TM Productions had the stations pull the jingle off the airwaves and the test alerts had to be read seriously.

I'm afraid that I'm going to be a wet blanket and side with the feds, too. For a couple of reasons.

The first is that these are Federal roads, specifically interstate roadways. If you don't get the local joke, then you miss the message. (Kind of like Logan Armpit is an international airport, but Massport has only recently realized that it should be signed as if people not from here are arriving on the planes).

The second is that a lot of drivers are working with relatively low literacy levels and many did not learn English as a first language. Even educated people who are still working on their English language skills have to translate things in their head - and inside jokes and slang don't translate very well.

These reasons have little to do with being formal and serious - they have a lot to do with effective communication for mass consumption.

to know the process used here. Who in the federal government thought about focusing on this, how many people were involved in collecting "humorous" signs from across the country, and how many meetings did it take?

Perhaps they had data that supported them? I don't know.

I could think that someone who didn't understand "use yah blinkah" perhaps shouldn't be on the road. I know not everyone is fluent in English but, in that case, they won't understand the serious messages either.

If Magoo was cap’n of the ship, Magoo would have every sign say “Magoo sez hello to yoo”. Magoo.

To change people's behavior you have to speak to them using their language. It's like music in church. Music is magic and getting people in the pews to sing gives them enjoyment and embeds a certain message. This ruling is like telling the church that all they can do is recite dry bible tracts because g-d has no sense of humor.

Before regulating attempts at humor, I'd like to see the government, and MASS DOT in particular, do better at the multi-page messages that are probably pretty important but that you only see part of because you're driving and your view is probably being blocked part of the time by some high-profile vehicle so you get EXIT 39 CLOSED and then it starts to flicker to the actual dates and times when it will be closed but by then you're past it.