A study shows that drivers are actually more likely to have an accident after viewing these signs.
Oklahoma Department of Transportation
If you’ve done much driving in the United States, you have likely come across a variety of large warning signs placed on the side of our highways. Many times these signs warn of upcoming road closures or the arrival of inclement weather, but there are some places where the messages may be a bit more grim. More than half of U.S. states use these devices to display the number of fatalities that have taken place on the roadways that year. According to a new study shared by the Wall Street Journal, these rather intense warning signs actually put drivers at a greater risk of an accident.
The study, which you can read in full here, focused on several years worth of data collected in the state of Texas, which is one of 28 states that have employed the use of these signs. While the study aimed to prove that these warnings actually have a positive impact on overall road safety, the data collected didn’t support those claims. In fact, the study found that accident occurrences increased by as much as 4.5 percent within six miles of these death toll signs. That increase was responsible for an average of 2600 crashes in Texas every year, resulting in 16 deaths annually. To add further insult to the many injuries, the study concluded that these signs actually cost the state of Texas more than $380 million annually, with that figure rising nearly seven-fold nationally. That’s a lot of dough to spend on something that isn’t achieving a tangible rise in safety.
So why are people more likely to get in a wreck after passing one of these signs? According to the study, that all comes down to something called cognitive overload. Drivers naturally begin to focus on the risks involved with being behind the wheel after viewing one of these signs, which can in turn overwhelm or distract drivers to a point where they aren’t driving normally. For the record, the U.S. Federal Highway Administration previously stated in 2021 that displaying fatality figures is an inappropriate use of these highway signs.
If the data found in this study is able to be verified across other states, perhaps it is time that we forgo the use of this particular type of signage. Auto accidents are an unfortunate leader in terms of deaths every year, though most of us don’t need a sign to remind us of that fact. Especially not if that sign increases the risk that we might be involved in an accident ourselves.
Keyword: Highway Fatality Warning Signs Are Doing Real Harm