I-Team: Activists against digital billboards

By Mike Owens

KSDK -- A group of activists, generally opposed to billboards, met at a downtown hotel Wednesday to talk about the dangers of electronic or digital billboards (DBB's).

The activists were joined by a handful of municipal officials who are charged with regulating billboards.

The meeting was hosted by Scenic Missouri, a group opposed to all billboards, especially DBB's.

Recently, state highway officials around the country read a report by Jerry Wachtel of the Veridian Group in California, citing electronic billboards as being too risky to be placed along highways. Wachtel's report says human eyes are driven to look at the boards and they pose a greater distraction than cell phones or GPS maps.

Wachtel would like to see DBB's get greater regulation, in their brightness and in limiting movement. He says both things can cause motorists to concentrate on the signs and not the road.

Bill May, head of the Missouri Outdoor Advertising Association in Springfield, says Wachtel's studies are not telling the whole truth.

May says the industry has its own studies, which say the number of accidents on roads around digital billboards have actually decreased in two cities recently studied. May adds the signs cannot be seen as cutting accidents, but says they did not increase accidents either.

May says DBB's can reduce the overall number of billboards in a community, because of their efficiency. He says one board can replace several, because multiple messages can be delivered from one site.

There are about 10 DBB's in the St. Louis region, regulated by the Missouri Department of Transportation.

The opponents of the DBB's say they are taking a new tack in opposition: energy consumption. The opponents of Scenic Missouri say the electronic boards consume huge amounts of energy, not only for the lights, but for cooling units required to keep the lights cool in the hot summer months.