A new roadside campaign uses personalized messages to praise safe drivers, offering a different approach to speeding warnings.
Drivers across the country are used to road signs warning them to slow down. But a new digital sign takes the opposite approach, offering praise to motorists who follow the speed limit instead of scolding those who don’t.
Called “The Slow Sign,” the bright pink display was created by New York City-based insurance company Lemonade in partnership with creative agency Cash Studio.
First installed outside Austin, Texas, the sign delivers personalized compliments to drivers traveling within the posted speed limit. Messages include “Obsessed With Your Safe Driving,” “Way to Drive a Fast Car Slow,” and “You Understood The Assignment.”
The sign may appear to identify passing vehicles on its own, but the process involves a human spotter farther down the road. Using a walkie-talkie, the spotter relays information about approaching cars, including their color and make.
The campaign is designed to do more than surprise drivers. Lemonade and Cash Studio want to encourage safer driving in a state they say has a pressing need for it.
“Tasked with coming up with a nontraditional campaign to promote Lemonade car insurance, where safe drivers pay less, we homed in on Texas, a state most in need of safe driving, with more car crashes than any other state,” Cash Studios founder Ivan Cash told Fast Company.
“Texas also issues a record number of speeding tickets each year, yet during our research we found that only 10% of drivers actually follow the speed limit.”
Research from the Federal Highway Administration and Science magazine has highlighted a potential downside to certain digital road signs: While they can encourage drivers to slow down, they may also contribute to an increase in crashes.
Researchers have linked the problem to messages that emphasize local traffic deaths or present statistics in a confrontational, attention-grabbing way. Such warnings can “seize too much attention,” potentially distracting drivers from changing traffic conditions around them.
Positive messaging offers a different approach, and experiments in other countries have found that encouragement can influence driving behavior.
In Finland, researchers tested signs that used simple symbols to encourage drivers to obey the speed limit.
Motorists traveling within the limit received a green smiley face. Those driving 10 kilometers, or 6.2 miles, per hour over the limit saw a red frown face, while drivers going even faster received a red exclamation point.
The study found a significant reduction in vehicle speeds in the areas where the signs were tested. Drivers also continued to follow the corrected driving habits after the signs were removed.
The findings offer a different perspective on roadside messaging: Instead of relying solely on warnings and criticism, signs can encourage drivers by recognizing when they do the right thing.
Neither Lemonade nor Cash Studios immediately returned The U.S. Sun’s requests for comment.