Emotionally intelligent signage on the road
Carl Webber sends this terrific sign from Epping, New Hampshire and reported in the Manchester Union-Leader.
It’s a classic example of emotionally intelligent signage: It aims to bring compliance with the rule (don’t speed through construction sites) by encouraging empathy on the part of the sign viewer. Added bonus: Some of these signs replace “Dad” with “Mom.”
Meantime, over at his always interesting site, Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic, has an fascinating post about — get this — emotionally intelligent bollards.
Here in Vancouver they have similar signs but they include pictures of the parent standing with the kid(s).
I think they even go so far as to have another one with a kid crying, or at least looking mighty sad.
Would be interesting to see how effective these signs are and how much of an impact images add.
The concept of emotionally intelligent signage is intriguing. Even where space is a constraint, sign “authors” can choose to communicate an emotional message even if the sign is nothing more than an advertisement.
WorkSafeBC ran a similar ad campaign here in Vancouver that showed a mom, a contruction zone traffic controller, with her daughter.