What's Wrong With This Picture: Just Not Right Now Edition

by Jack Baruth

March 20th, 2012 6:20 PM

what s wrong with this picture just not right now edition

This has to be a Photoshop job, right? Some of the pixels don’t look quite right, and I’ve seen quite a few ‘shops in my time which look similar, but most of that could be explained away by the fact that the EXIF data indicates it was taken with an iPhone, and some iPhones take awfully grainy pictures.

Alternately, it really could just be another one of these well-meaning but statistically naive attempts to get people to stop looking at their phones while they drive. You know, so they can look up and see the bumpers of all the stopped traffic ahead. Or the billboards…

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8 of 17 comments

Lumbergh21 on Mar 20, 2012

On Top Gear a few seasons ago they pointed out the new "environmentally freindly" road signs that operated on solar power were required to have an additional sign operating on a standard source of electricity next to them as a back-up. So now instead of just having the single sign plugged into the grid, you also had a second sign that operates off solar cells at additional cost both monetary and environmentally (the manufacture of teh solar cells and sign itself) in the name of being environmentally friendly. Only politicians wouldn't look at that before implementing it and say it was crazy/stupid.

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- Lw on Mar 20, 2012
  
  The job of government is to borrow and spend money... Imagine if you had to spend trillions per year... I bet it's hard after the first couple trillion... What do you buy that you didn't buy last month? Last year?
  
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Redseca2 on Mar 21, 2012

A pointless message on a big sign. Seriously, there should be hotspots that send that image to you smartphone. With a follow up text that if you are reading this and you are in an accident, the record of this data transmission will be used in court.

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GS650G on Mar 21, 2012

Not as distracting as most billboards. The new electronic signs are the worse since they really get your attention when they change. It's almost impossible to at least not glance at them and travel 50 feet down the road without looking ahead.

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- Aristurtle on Mar 21, 2012
  
  The one thing I miss about Vermont was the total lack of billboards. They're illegal there. You don't really notice it consciously at first; you just think "oh, wow, this view looks amazing" or whatever, and it's not until you cross the border over to NY or MA that you realize, "well, that's why." (Actually, I miss several things about Vermont, but I couldn't find a job there, so...)
  
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- MarkP on Mar 21, 2012
  
  @aristurtle So now I know that the opposite of "Vermont" is "Georgia." In Georgia they love and revere billboards so much that the general assembly passed a law to let billboard companies cut down trees on public rights of way if they block the view of a billboard.
  
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- Aristurtle on Mar 21, 2012
  
  @aristurtle It's really nice; I think Vermont is the nicest state to drive in if you don't like speeding. (If you do like speeding, you will get very impatient very quickly). I wish more states would ban them; I think it's just Vermont, Maine, and Alaska right now. In fact, I'll forgive this whole "distracted driving" push if it results in a nationwide push to cut down on billboards. It makes sense: the whole point of advertising is to grab your attention, and for the driver, that means that a billboard is deliberately trying to take some of your attention away from the road, right? Let's go with it.
  
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Replica on Mar 21, 2012

Is the war on cell phone use really the best use of our time? Are there more dangerous activities in moving cars that the driver does? I can think of one. Some driver's like to start small fires in their cars. The results are an eye-watering haze of smoke, burnt interior cloth and carcinogens airborne. Why is smoking in cars overlooked?

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