County board will

light up electronic

billboard discussion
By Scott Nicholson
nicholson@wataugademocrat.com

Watauga County is taking a closer look at electronic billboards in the wake of citizen complaints.

The agenda for Tuesday’s board of commissioners meeting includes discussion of a possible moratorium on electronic signs and electronic billboards.

The issue arose from complaints to commissioners from people who were concerned about safety.

Earlier this year, a digital sign with rotating messages was constructed on U.S. 421 to replace a traditional flat billboard.

The billboard site didn’t fall under the billboard prohibitions of the road’s Scenic Byway designation since it predated the measure and was permitted for the older section of U.S. 421, now called Old U.S. Highway 421.

That sign was reviewed by the county’s board of adjustment, which interpreted the county’s sign ordinance to hold no difference between electronic or traditional billboards. The sign also met state guidelines for outdoor signs or billboards.

Under the state regulations, outdoor signs are limited to a maximum of 1,200 square feet, 30 feet in height and 60 feet in length. Signs can’t interfere with traffic or traffic signals and on freeways; billboards must be at least 500 feet apart. Outside of incorporated towns or cities, billboards on state-controlled routes must be at least 300 feet apart.

“Automatic changeable facing signs” must maintain a fixed image for at least eight seconds and can’t have animated or scrolling advertising, nor can they contain flashing or moving lights. Such signs must be at least 1,000 feet apart.

“They’re basically treated as a regular billboards in our sign ordinance, as long as they meet size and space requirements” said planning director Joe Furman. The county has the authority to come up with its own rules for such signs.

In addition to the digital sign on U.S. 421, two billboards near Valle Crucis have electronic or changeable messages. In 2005, the N.C. Department of Transportation placed a permanent electronic sign on U.S. 321 to give construction updates and traffic information.

If the commissioners enact a moratorium, they would likely request the planning board draft language to regulate changeable-facing signs.

Furman said the planning board would then look at language in the ordinances from other areas where such signs have been regulated.

A 2001 review by the Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Safety suggested such signs could create a distraction to drivers, though it acknowledged little research had been compiled.

The review, “Safety Effects of Electronic Billboards on Driver Attention,” was based largely on previous research and drew on studies involving other “driver distractions” such as cellular telephones and in-vehicle information systems.

Studies from the 1950s suggested crashes are more likely to occur on roads containing commercial billboards, though a 1952 study in Michigan found advertising signs did not lead to increased crashes, except for neon signs, which correlated with a higher crash rate.

A 1984 study in Wisconsin analyzed traffic date and crash frequency in the three years before and after a variable-message advertising sign was placed near Milwaukee County Stadium showing scores and ads and changing images every five seconds.

The study showed crash rates after the sign was installed had increased more than 35 percent in both lanes, with the number of “sideswipe crashes” significantly increasing.

A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration examination of causal factors in crashes attributed 3.2 percent of all crashes to “distraction by sources external to the vehicle.”

The study didn’t specify which sources caused the most crashes, or whether billboards were one of the cited distractions.

Other studies suggest the length of the message, how long it is displayed, its legibility and its luminance can all be factors in the amount of attention the sign receives. The commissioners will meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Administration Building in Boone.