The Worst of Changeable Message Signs

[bootmii]

I saw one with four phases down the street from my school. They're doing construction there. Is there ANY REASON a CMS should use more than three phases? And three phases only if it's ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. 

[mcdonaat]

I saw one with four phases down the street from my school. They're doing construction there. Is there ANY REASON a CMS should use more than three phases? And three phases only if it's ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. 

Permanent ones on I-10 westbound between Acadian Thwy and the 10/110 split tell trucks that they are advised to stay in the center lane to merge onto the MRB. Since I go that way daily, I've seen the signs change from "Stay in right lane" (which meant stay in the right lane of the ramp) to "Take right lane to MRB" (also meaning the right lane of the ramp, not 10), to the new "TRUCKS USE CTR LN TO MRB, TRVL 35 MPH". It also alternates with just "TRUCKS STAY IN CTR LANE TO USE MRB." I've also seen one sign on 10E between LA 415 and LA 1 say "ACDNT BLCK RT LN, EXPCT DLY AHEAD ON MRB." Too many acronyms!

[agentsteel53]

It would probably be a lot less indecipherable if I knew what the Murb was.

[Brandon]

The worst?

How about IDOT's campaign to show you how many people have dies on Illinois roads this year so far:

763
TRAFFIC DEATHS
THIS YEAR

It's stupid and morbid, IMHO.  Of course, I'm rooting for it to pass 1,000. 

[allniter89]

The worst?

How about IDOT's campaign to show you how many people have dies on Illinois roads this year so far:

763
TRAFFIC DEATHS
THIS YEAR

It's stupid and morbid, IMHO.  Of course, I'm rooting for it to pass 1,000. 

Given the way Illinoisans(?) drive reaching the 1,000 mark may happen, 3 a day would do it (easy peasy).
In the 70's Delaware had a billboard outside the Troop 3 state police substation showing how many died the current year and the previous year, I never paid it much attention tho because I was 17-26yo and bullet proof  .
Back on topic, the worst cms's r the 1s' that use acronyms that are not well known 2 non-residents. :-)

[Ace10]

It would probably be a lot less indecipherable if I knew what the Murb was.

Mississippi River Bridge? I had to think about that one and I've lived in Baton Rouge for 4 years!

Of course they could call it the HWB (for Horace Wilkinson Bridge) but then that would really confuse the heck out of people.

The worst?

How about IDOT's campaign to show you how many people have dies on Illinois roads this year so far:

763
TRAFFIC DEATHS
THIS YEAR

It's stupid and morbid, IMHO.  Of course, I'm rooting for it to pass 1,000. 

Texas is doing that, too. Back from my trip to Seattle I was driving east on I-30 through D/FW. I think the number there was over 1,000.

[formulanone]

The worst?

How about IDOT's campaign to show you how many people have dies on Illinois roads this year so far:

763
TRAFFIC DEATHS
THIS YEAR

It's stupid and morbid, IMHO.  Of course, I'm rooting for it to pass 1,000. 

Where's that awkward laugh smiley?

You're ahead of (or behind?) Tennessee, which was using something similar along I-240 in Memphis back in August.

Of course, I'm wondering if that includes out-of-state visitors' fatalities, because there's nothing worse than being an uncounted statistic.

[Scott5114]

ODOT did a horrible one on SH-9 approaching I-35 which said something along the lines of "I-35 NB RAMP 2B CLOSED [date]". It took me several minutes to rack my brain trying to wonder which one was ramp 2B... There isn't an exit 2B on I-35 in Oklahoma, and if there were, it'd be 100 miles to the south and not relevant to a traveler in the vicinity of the sign. Maybe it was an internal ramp numbering designation? If so, which one was Ramp 2B?

I was nearly to work when I realized it was supposed to be text speak for "to be".

Here's another one I've never managed to puzzle out. My guess is that some random person might have reprogrammed it–but as you can see it's in an active work zone, so you'd think someone would have caught it and changed it back...

[jeffandnicole]

The worst?

How about IDOT's campaign to show you how many people have dies on Illinois roads this year so far:

763
TRAFFIC DEATHS
THIS YEAR

It's stupid and morbid, IMHO.  Of course, I'm rooting for it to pass 1,000. 

Given the way Illinoisans(?) drive reaching the 1,000 mark may happen, 3 a day would do it (easy peasy).
In the 70's Delaware had a billboard outside the Troop 3 state police substation showing how many died the current year and the previous year, I never paid it much attention tho because I was 17-26yo and bullet proof  .
Back on topic, the worst cms's r the 1s' that use acronyms that are not well known 2 non-residents. :-)

Delaware still maintains these signs (not a billboard, but rather a 3' x 3' sign) outside their troop headquarters with this year's fatals vs. last year's fatals.

BTW, as of Friday, this year is down slightly.

[deathtopumpkins]

On my trip up to the White Mountains at the end of August I noticed New Hampshire doing the same thing. Every VMS I saw statewide displayed the fact that that month there had been "17 NH traffic deaths". Almost as if they were bragging about it.

[jeffandnicole]

On my trip up to the White Mountains at the end of August I noticed New Hampshire doing the same thing. Every VMS I saw statewide displayed the fact that that month there had been "17 NH traffic deaths". Almost as if they were bragging about it.

Maybe that's a bad thing, and shows that the message isn't getting across.  According to this news article, that figure is actually UP 19% from last August. http://www.unionleader.com/article/20120901/NEWS07/709019951 (Per the article, 20 deaths in 18 Accidents occurred during the month...which means there was a few additional after you saw the sign.)

I doubt they're bragging about more deaths!

[Alps]

Hampton Roads VMS have a significant number of pixels permanently on or permanently off. Time to get a new technology.

[cpzilliacus]

Hampton Roads VMS have a significant number of pixels permanently on or permanently off. Time to get a new technology.

Interesting.  VDOT's Northern Virginia has recently replaced many VMS panels with dramatically better units.

[bootmii]

Wait, I saw one on SB Mission in Colma that had five phases. 

[thenetwork]

The WORST of Changeable Message Signs was -- bar none -- the ones that M-DOT placed over many of the freeways in and around Downtown Detroit in the late 80's/early 90's:

They were all Black-on-Gray LCD signs -- imagine your local digital gas-pump readouts in an enlarged dot-,...er triangle/square-matrix format that was nearly unreadable with-or-without lighting, day or night.  And even if you could read the text, most of the time there was usually a section which was stuck in an on-or-off position. 

Worst.Sign.Technology.Ever.

[vtk]

I think most of these examples will come from trying to fit too much information on signs which can only display 3 lines of 8 characters.  We need more of those full-dot-matrix signs where the text size can be varied.  Not that I advocate tiny text in construction zones, but strictly 8 characters per line allows very few practical combinations of 2 words to share the same line.

[abc2VE]

The WORST of Changeable Message Signs was -- bar none -- the ones that M-DOT placed over many of the freeways in and around Downtown Detroit in the late 80's/early 90's:

They were all Black-on-Gray LCD signs -- imagine your local digital gas-pump readouts in an enlarged dot-,...er triangle/square-matrix format that was nearly unreadable with-or-without lighting, day or night.  And even if you could read the text, most of the time there was usually a section which was stuck in an on-or-off position. 

Worst.Sign.Technology.Ever.

Do you mean flip-disk displays?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-disc_display

[thenetwork]

The WORST of Changeable Message Signs was -- bar none -- the ones that M-DOT placed over many of the freeways in and around Downtown Detroit in the late 80's/early 90's:

They were all Black-on-Gray LCD signs -- imagine your local digital gas-pump readouts in an enlarged dot-,...er triangle/square-matrix format that was nearly unreadable with-or-without lighting, day or night.  And even if you could read the text, most of the time there was usually a section which was stuck in an on-or-off position. 

Worst.Sign.Technology.Ever.

Do you mean flip-disk displays?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-disc_display

Noooo...Not the Ferranti-Packard type, these were far worse than those.  I tried to find a photo of one, but couldn't -- these babies have (mercifully) been long gone for at least 10-15 years.  If someone has a photo of one, please post it!

[BiggieJohn]

a couple years ago in Austin, TX --

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emPPKjyU_NI

[hotdogPi]

I have seen "Testing 123456789 ABCDEFGHI"

I have also seen "I-95/128: 16 MILES 14 MIN". That's way over the speed limit of 65.

[Eth]

I have also seen "I-95/128: 16 MILES 14 MIN". That's way over the speed limit of 65.

16 miles @ 65 mph = 14 minutes, 46 seconds. Maybe they're rounding down.

[briantroutman]

The WORST of Changeable Message Signs was -- bar none -- the ones that M-DOT placed over many of the freeways in and around Downtown Detroit in the late 80's/early 90's:

They were all Black-on-Gray LCD signs -- imagine your local digital gas-pump readouts in an enlarged dot-,...er triangle/square-matrix format that was nearly unreadable with-or-without lighting, day or night.  And even if you could read the text, most of the time there was usually a section which was stuck in an on-or-off position. 

Worst.Sign.Technology.Ever.

You mean something like a sixteen-segment display?

We need more of those full-dot-matrix signs where the text size can be varied.

Maybe someone has already done this, but wouldn't it be possible to have a VMS that essentially worked like a giant e-ink screen–like you have on a Kindle? The sheeting behind could be retroreflective and require no backlighting, and since electricity is only needed to change the display, the e-ink display could be almost entirely non-powered. And of course such a screen would also be able to reproduce perfect FHWA alphabets, route shields, and diagrammatics. It would be a quantum leap ahead of our current VMSes–which are about as technically advanced as the game board on 1970s-era Family Feud.

Perhaps it's possible but just too expensive at this time.

[Big John]

^^ The technology is used on a smaller scale in places, such as in Seattle where the variable speed limit signs actually display the speed limit in FHWA series E.

[1995hoo]

On my trip up to the White Mountains at the end of August I noticed New Hampshire doing the same thing. Every VMS I saw statewide displayed the fact that that month there had been "17 NH traffic deaths". Almost as if they were bragging about it.

I think in the White Mountains it should say "BEWARE TRIPODS."

(I assume I'm not the only one who remembers those books.)

[deathtopumpkins]

I have seen "Testing 123456789 ABCDEFGHI"

I have also seen "I-95/128: 16 MILES 14 MIN". That's way over the speed limit of 65.

The signs use the actual speed of traffic, not the speed limit. Having a travel time sign that shows you the time at the speed limit would be pointless, since it doesn't matter what the speed limit is if the road is congested.

One example that always strikes me is the new ones on I-95. There's a "6 miles / 4 min" and a "3 miles / 2 min" sign. Those are both ~90 mph, which makes me believe they must be rounded up.