Distracted Driving - Are Digitized Billboards a Collision Risk?
Efforts are underway to go beyond cracking down on distracted driving from cell phone use and text messaging. The new culprit? Digitized billboards. The New York Times is featuring a piece on the risks posed by digitized billboards.
The number of digitized billboards advertising products, broadcasting news headlines, and announcing sports scores, is growing every day. The brightly lit billboards are visible from a great distance away, and give companies the chance to grab motorists attention. They also pose an additional source of distraction.
The billboard industry insists that the distraction is minimal. Opponents say the accident risks outweigh any benefits.
A Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study in 2007 noted that digitized billboards did not change driver behavior any more than regular billboards, but that study has drawn criticism once it was discovered that the billboard industry funded it. The Virginia Tech researcher has called for more studies into the crash risks from these billboards.
As an Atlanta car accident and personal injury lawyer, I believe we need those additional studies very soon. We should confirm whether the risks are the same for both digitized and traditional billboard. The number of digitized billboards is rapidly growing and possibly the number of car wrecks on Georgia’s highways.
