Zack Bartel

I noticed something the other day while driving down I-5. I traveled about 200 miles from Seattle to Portland and noticed that in both states there is one thing in common when it comes to the freeways. Every single one of those enormous digital readout signs had an informational message. I believe these things are referred to as the “Amber Alert” signs (I am yet to see an Amber Alert on these things by the way) and when they put one of these behemouths in my hometown of Wilsonville someone told me that they cost around $1,000,000 a piece. Don’t get me wrong here. It’s not necessarily that I think these things are a waste of money but when you have one every 3 miles and EVERY SINGLE ONE reads “Click it or Ticket” it makes me wonder. I kid you not. When I was driving from Seattle through Olympia and especially near Tacoma there was one of these huge tax payer funded signs threatening me every few miles.

I’m not exactly sure what decade we’re in but if your car is anything like mine if you for some reason do forget to put on your seatbelt there will be a loud head-splitting buzzer noise and a bright red placard that lights up on the dashboard. If you still don’t put on your seatbelt then you will surely be driven insane after driving a few miles. Given I do drive a 2007 automobile maybe this isn’t the same on older cars? Nope, my grandfather’s 1977 Mercedez-Benz tank has the same mechanism.

And here’s the other thing. If we are going to spend (I can only imagine) millions of dollars on these things lets standardize on it. Why is it that the ONLY place in our society where we not only don’t enforce the seatbelt law but don’t even give the passengers an option is on the school buses! The one place where there are a couple dozen young hyped up kids being sat three to a seat and driven by a crazy old lady who probably just took a nip off the hip flask is the one place we don’t even provide seatbelts!

Now I’m all for public service announcements but I have not seen one (I think) EVER that is appropriate. Why don’t we do meaningful PSAs that people might actually get something out of. Why don’t we have a “The More You Know” about tire pressure. But, instead of being informed that if you keep your tires properly inflated you can save 10-15% on gas we have to listen to McGruff The Crime Dog talk about keeping an eye on your laptop at the airport. Or letting the less than intelligent drivers out there know that you, in fact, can turn right on red. But instead we have to listen to David Shwimmer tell me that I can be “Funny without making fun of other people”. Thanks Dave.
Nope, instead I have to listen to TV and radio commercials with Hollywoodized policemen and million dollar road signs threatening me to “Click it or Ticket”.

I feel like there needs to be some kind of pyramid of crimes prioritized by what we feel is most important. At the top we have murder, robbery, etc. In the middle there’s the meth epidemic, green house whatever gases, illegal immigration, and what-have-you. And then, sometime in the future we’ll get to the damn seat belts.

Put air in your tires, turn right on red, Don’t purchase Comcast services and CLICK THIS!

The More You Know