Display areas
Cities have addressed the issue of LED display area in different ways. Some bylaws place no particular size restrictions on EMCs beyond those already affecting other types of signs. In many cases, however, they are regulated based on set sizes—i.e. square footages—or as a percentage of the total area of a sign’s overall face, so as to prevent the appearance of a ‘black box on a stick.’ This comes from a desire for sign structures to be esthetically pleasing.
Safety concerns
EMCs have been studied for more than 30 years and never been found to be hazardous to the public’s safety. People assume they must pose a danger by distracting drivers, but this is faulty logic.
Statistical studies that have counted accidents along a roadway before and after the installation of an adjacent LED display have always shown no increase in their numbers. The more difficult problem, however, arises when driver distraction is measured in ‘human factors’ studies, which involve mounting a camera in a car to map out where the driver glances while on the road. These studies show that drivers are indeed ‘distracted’ by signs in that they look at them, but the key finding is they don’t glance at digital signs for any longer or any more frequently than is already acceptable to traffic safety researchers.
In some jurisdictions, LED displays are regulated as a percentage of the total area of the sign, so as to prevent the appearance of a ‘black box on a stick.’
To wit, the average driver’s glance at an EMC lasts approximately half a second, which is far lower than accepted thresholds for traffic safety concerns. The basic standard suggests a glance of more than two seconds would be needed to increase the possibility of a traffic accident. Texting while driving, for example, represents a distraction of four to six seconds, which is why there are increasing regulations against such behaviour.
In other words, signs do distract drivers, but distraction is something that can be measured—and the level of distraction caused by signs is not dangerous.
In the real world
Beyond these issues, there may be further distinctions made in regulations based on zoning districts, e.g. downtown versus general commercial versus highway commercial. There is no need for a ‘one size fits all’ rule anyway. A jurisdiction can allow signs where they are useful and restrict them elsewhere. The technology of an LED display, for example, may make it inappropriate for installation in a historical area of a town.
Seeing the real-world implications of these signs usually helps balance everyone’s needs, but the process can take quite a bit of educational outreach first. The more comfortable and familiar authorities become with LED displays, the more appropriately they will regulate them.
Roger Brown is a signage legislation expert with Daktronics, which engineers scoreboards, EMCs and other large-scale LED displays. This article is based on a seminar he presented earlier this year on behalf of the Sign Association of Canada (SAC). For more information, visit www.daktronics.com and www.sac-ace.ca.
