When Billboards Make Driving Unsafe

Good Intent, Poor Execution, Makes This Billboard Dangerous

In what is sub-titled as; TBWA\Buenos Aires gets smart (and safe) for Argentina’s La Caja, from our perspective is fundamentally off-limits in my world of #OOH experience.

Advertiser: La Caja Generali, an insurance company, added lights to their billboards and then directed the lights to the road to illuminate the area for visibility considerations.  They explained how they did so ‘safely’ with the assistance of the National Road Safety Organization.  This makes absolutely no sense.

Directing lights into the road is a hazard and a dim idea! (pun intended)

Lights on billboards in America are typically expressly forbidden from shining into the road. The danger of ‘blinding’ a driver with the illumination from the billboard aimed to the road is overwhelmingly unsafe!
My last encounter on the subject, was with the Commonwealth of Virginia, when our newly installed light fixture (Holophane Sign-Vue 400) was ‘bleeding’ underneath the billboard. The state DOT phoned and asked for it to be removed or adjusted. While our light was not pointed towards the road, as was the case in the Insurance billboards, what little light from our sign which made its way to a driver’s eyes was not worth a potential accident. That is why we have headlights on vehicles and street lights on poles illuminating down on roadways.

Nice marketing stunt, but in the end, it defeats the purpose expressly stated by the insurance agency to make the roads safer.

What is your take? Good idea or blinded by the light?

What is your knowledge of your state regs regarding lighting towards traffic?

Read the story from Ad Week here ⇒You Can’t Read These Insurance Billboards at Night. They Light Up Dangerous Roads Instead