It was recently brought to our attention how much we depend on billboards to plan our stops for fuel, to eat, find a hotel, or to find a local attraction. While abroad we rented a car and before long realized we were going to need fuel and that is when we realized we had not seen any billboards or outdoor advertising.
We saw none of those helpful signs at the off ramp telling us the services available or a single billboard advertising a business. We finally could see rooftops to the side of the carriage way and drove around looking for a place to fuel our manual car where the driver sat on the right hand side.
Not seeing outdoor billboards allowed us to enjoy the countryside without all of the distractions and at the same time left us without a plan. We rely on billboards to assist us when we need a place to eat or fuel we quickly realized. Not having a international plan on our phones also limited us on searching for places nearby.
In the United States billboards are big business and a sign in rural areas can run as little as $75.00 and upwards of $10,000 a month for a digital sign in a metropolitan area. In 1991 there were approximately 450,000 billboards along the US highways and there are somewhere between 5000 to 15,000 new signs erected each year.
Are they a distraction? Yes and are the digital billboards a huge distraction YES I believe they are. Some signs are so bright they blind you and the one that I believe is the worst is the one advertising a Casino on I-70 in downtown Saint Louis. This sign is near a curve in the interstate and at night it will rival any roadwork crew that is working at nights with working lights. It is blinding.
Personally I enjoy billboards as they break up monotony when driving and when I am looking for a truck stop I appreciate the billboard telling me the exit number. Our Rand McNally GPS also tells us the exit number for our destination but the GPS is not 100% correct. The downside to billboards is that they do clutter up the sides of our highways and they can be distracting. The worst invention is the digital billboard as our eye is drawn to something moving and then we have a tendency to watch and see as the sign changes.
After going abroad and not seeing any roadway signs while traveling I appreciate how clean the countryside looked without gaudy signs. On the other hand I really appreciate the exit signs and the exit signs that tell us which way to turn when we are off of the ramp. Learning about the income that is generated off of the billboards, they are not going to go away any time soon.