Munson: Life-saving messages spark Iowa’s roadside quips

AMES, Ia. — If state government ever produces its own late-night TV comedy show, its roots could be traced back to this unlikely writing duo inside the Iowa Department of Transportation.

Traffic engineer Willy Sorenson and his colleague Tracey Bramble make each other howl with laughter as they brainstorm months’ worth of humorous messages — with input from colleagues and the public — to be flashed each Monday on dozens of digital road signs statewide.

You think it’s difficult to be simultaneously pithy, funny and informative on Twitter with its 140-character limit? Try no more than 54 characters — three lines of 18 apiece.

Sorenson and Bramble have authored such windshield classics as “Get your head out of your apps, drive safely” (actor George Takei of “Star Trek” fame loved that one) and “May the 4th be with you, text I will not” (repeat in your best Yoda voice).

They’re responsible for perhaps the most prominent, public series of one-liners in Iowa. Drivers spot their work suspended over the roadway on 29-foot-long digital signs for an average of 12 seconds at a time.

Monday’s message, flashed across 74 signs statewide, was more straightforward by recent standards: “Exit to text it.”

“We watch movies and we have kids and we listen to Katy Perry way too much sometimes,” Bramble said. Like any creative team, Sorenson and Bramble gradually have found their voice and gotten more adventurous. They’ve also learned that inspiration may come from anywhere.

It was Sorenson’s teenage son who inspired “Not buckled? Seriously??”

Beloved baseball flick “The Sandlot” was the source of Sorenson’s favorite message thus far: “Not buckled? You’re killing me Smalls.”

Both Bramble and Andrea Henry, the DOT’s communications director, love “May the 4th be with you.” That convinced scores of TV newscasters to talk like Yoda.

Last month, “Nobody puts baby in a hot car,” pegged to the arrival of the "Dirty Dancing" musical at the Des Moines Civic Center, pranced its way across social media.

These might be the most scrutinized phrases in the state. Sorenson and Bramble are the primary authors. But they must submit each message for approval in a biannual committee meeting. And, of course, DOT Director Paul Trombino has final say.

Last week I got to join the fall “Message Monday” meeting at the DOT compound in the middle of Ames. It felt like the Midwestern state government version of what it must be like to sit in with the “Saturday Night Live” or “Daily Show” writers in New York.

I even convinced the committee to let me reveal a couple of upcoming messages as I studied their (giggly) deliberations.

What Des Moines clothier Raygun has done with T-shirts, the DOT seems to be trying to do with its signs: Leverage them for relevant, timely editorial commentary.

Such roadway quips have become a certifiable trend, with more states relying on humor to grab drivers’ eyeballs. Iowa is among perhaps a dozen states, DOT officials said, that now broadcast these sorts of messages.

Sorenson forwarded his entire message list to Utah, which recently launched its own campaign.

Massachusetts received press coverage last year for its messages, some of which exploit regional dialect: “Use yah blinkah.”

This summer Missouri borrowed “Get your head out of your apps."

Iowa’s messages first appeared two years ago, before the official June 2014 launch of the DOT’s “Zero Fatalities” campaign.

Not every weekly installment has been rapturously received. An angry woman emailed Sorenson to protest "Nobody puts baby in a hot car"; her friend's child had died precisely that way. Bramble also spreads these messages through the DOT’s blogs and Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Sorenson called and asked her whether she wanted that to happen to anybody else? No, of course not, she replied.

"Neither do we," he told her. "And that is exactly why we’re doing it."

"When she started hearing that it wasn’t the sign talking to her anymore," Sorenson said, "that it was us as individuals talking to her, she got it.”

“We’re doing this to try to save lives,” Bramble said. “We’re not doing it to get a chuckle. … We’re trying to change people’s behavior.”

But this “more human form of government,” as Henry put it, does beg extra caution.

Traditional traffic engineering doesn’t even embrace punctuation, let alone irreverent humor and pop culture references.

The messages have gotten a little edgier ("Texting & driving? Oh cell no!"). But the DOT committee so far has been too skittish to blast the state with this one: “Speeding is for the birds; slow the flock down.”

I laughed out loud when I heard it. And it seems to be the underground favorite at the DOT.

The finer points of ruttin'

Sorenson, Bramble and Henry last week were joined around the conference table by Steve Gent, director of traffic safety, and Jan Laaser-Webb, safety engineer, with one more committee member absent.

The messages are kept under wraps until this meeting, displayed one at a time on a projection screen.

WHOLE LOTTA

RUTTIN’ GOING ON

WATCH FOR DEER

The committee debated: Do enough people understand “rutting” (sex-crazed deer)?

Does "ruttin'" look too much like “rotten” at first glance?

Bramble said that she would include a YouTube video of Jerry Lee Lewis' “Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On" alongside the message on the blog.

One of the DOT's target demographics is men ages 25 to 40. So a topic that includes hunting and rutting (and anything that rhymes with "beer," I might add) should cater to them.

The message passed intact.

Another example:

GIVE BLOOD

THE RIGHT WAY

NOT THE HIGH WAY

Or …

GIVE BLOOD

THE RIGHT WAY

NOT ON THE HIGHWAY

The first option feels like the DOT is encouraging marijuana use, Henry said: It’s OK to get high, just not after you’ve given blood.

Laaser-Webb said that she would assume “high way” to be a typo — an accidental extra space.

Gent questioned “the right way”: Is there another phrase more commonly associated with blood donation?

Sorenson Googled a range of options; the committee pondered “give blood, give life.”

But Sorenson also advocated for maintaining the rhyme (right way and highway). But "Give blood today" was deemed too strong a push for a non-traffic-related cause.

So the second version won.

'Next big wave of safety'

Annual traffic fatalities in Iowa have hit historic lows: The 317 killed in 2013 represented the fewest highway deaths since World War II, followed last year by 321. So far this year, 245 have died. While the humorous inspiration for these messages may come from anywhere, the DOT tries to focus on five areas that represent the most common behavioral contributors to traffic deaths: not wearing seat belts, speeding, drunken/drugged driving, distracted driving and drowsy driving.

But that also means, Bramble said, that “the low-hanging fruit has been picked.”

Cars and roads have seen safer designs for years, Gent said. Now it’s down to human behavior as the “next big wave of safety.”

Thus roadway humor has become a popular method of trying to nudge drivers' behavior in the right direction. Traffic engineers see the weekly schedule as a delicate compromise between making sure the messages stay prominent but don't get monotonous.

But are they effective? There's been no specific evaluation of Iowa's campaign or funny DOT signs in general. A study in four major cities of the impact of public service announcements on these "dynamic message signs" indicated that they're likely to be generally effective, although not as much with young men. Most of all the studies seemed to emphasize the need for more detailed research.

Another concern: Might these messages be too successful? Too eye-catching? (Admit it: Have you tweeted a photo of a DOT quip while driving?)

The DOT writing team has not received a single report of a crash or similar incident linked to the signs. Sorenson also analyzed Iowa interstate traffic the day that one of the more popular messages was released. He can tap into live GPS data that pulls from freight fleet vehicles on the road. There was no slowdown or bottleneck around the signs.

So for now it's full speed ahead on "Hey bobblehead stop looking at your phone," "Don't press your luck, no Whammies" and "Drink green beer see red lights in rearview mirror."

Not to mention that the Message Monday approval sessions are the most fun DOT meetings of the year, Gent said.

Suggest your own ideas on the DOT's Facebook page, on Twitter or by filling out the feedback form on the department's website. But keep in mind how Sorenson characterized his litmus test for appropriate messages:

"We may bring you up to the line," he said, "but we're not going to cross it."

I hold out hope that “Speeding is for the birds; slow the flock down” yet may fall on the favorable side of that line and some Monday soon shine ahead of me on the interstate in all its glory.