Sign Industry: Tulsa's Billboards Too Bright

[patric]

A new study funded by billboard industry group Outdoor Advertising Association of America indicates that Tulsa's new digital LED billboards are much brighter than the industry recommends.

http://www.polcouncil.org/polc2/DigitalBillboardsIanLewin.pdf
(moved from http://www.ies.org/E-Newsletter/pdf/Billboards.pdf)

The study, "Digital Billboard Recommendations and Comparisons to Conventional Billboards" by Lighting Sciences Inc. of Scottsdale AZ also illuminates flaws in the Tulsa sign ordinances on how the brightness of conventional billboards is measured. 

The study recommends LED billboard brightness around 342 Candelas per-square meter, or "Nits," for an average 10.5 x 36 foot billboard under average ambient lighting conditions.
The Tulsa Planning Commission recommended a limit of 300 Nits for the ordinance, but this was raised to 500 Nits on the urging of newly-elected Councilors Eric Gomez and Dennis Troyer before becoming law.

The paper also prescribes the method of measuring brightness of conventional billboards that differs vastly from the Tulsa sign ordinance.

The correct measurement involves standing a given distance with a footcandle meter 5 feet above the ground, aimed at an all-white billboard.
A 10.5 x 36 billboard would be measured at 200 feet distance, for example.
If the difference in illuminance between the billboard-on and billboard-off conditions is 0.3 footcandles, then the billboard luminance is in compliance. 

The current Tulsa ordinance requirement that "No such sign shall exceed an illumination of seventy (70) foot candles measured at a two (2) foot distance" is ambiguous and unenforcible.

[cannon_fodder]

I readily admit that the topic of light measures is beyond me on a technical level.  I do know that during the day the signs look great.  At night they can be too bright if shown with a largely white background or other bright colors.

[PonderInc]

I'm not overly fond of any visual garbage that assaults me from over 1/2 mile away, day or night.

That pretty much sums up my feelings about digital billboards.

[Red Arrow]

I'm not overly fond of any visual garbage that assaults me from over 1/2 mile away, day or night.

That pretty much sums up my feelings about digital billboards.

Pretty much any billboard for me.

[mjchamplin]

I especially hate when they're animated.

I remember when they first opened the South Creek turnpike extension down to BA. The church there on the bend at 91st st. (Grace fellowship I think?) had these creepy videos of peoples' eyes. So you'd drive by and there would be a 20ft face looking around on the sign. It was really distracting.

[carltonplace]

I know it's meaningless, but I am making it a point not to look at billboards now. I feel like they are a three year old that is trying harder and harder to get my attention until I finally lose my cool and yell: "What do you #$%* want?"

I fully expect that if LED billboards don't sell adds that transformer^tm signs are next.

or, I might be nutz.

[patric]

I fully expect that if LED billboards don't sell adds that transformer^tm signs are next.

Oh, im almost afraid to ask......

[PonderInc]

Interesting that people are shooting at the digital billboards. http://www.ktul.com/news/stories/0309/606821.html 

If you've ever driven on a country road, you know that some folks see every stationary object as a target...and I'm sure these are quite tempting. 

Obviously, it's dangerous and stupid, and nobody should be firing weapons where stray bullets could cause harm to anyone or anything... but I have to say, I understand the motivation...

My personal fantasy involves some computer hacker who goes after digital billboard networks, and turns them off.  Or a mythical Paul Bunyan with a giant chainsaw that can "clear cut" all the billboards.  (Presumably Babe the Blue Ox would drag them off to the landfill.)  Or, the greatest fantasy of all... The City of Tulsa bans all billboards and pole signs from our city limits!

[PonderInc]

Hey, it's my fantasy.  In my fantasy, they turn them off. 

On the bright side, if hackers replaced the messages with porn, we'd get more support from conservatives who would suddenly want to make billboards illegal (after they got a good, close look at the offending matter...) so that would be fine, too!

[nathanm]

More likely, some RBN hackers will take them over and start selling ad time on them without being conspicuous enough for the owners to actually notice. Shave a few seconds off each "real" ad, and you've got time for your own that you can sell to the highest bidder. I expect we will soon be seeing ads for Viagra from Canada on our billboards.

And maybe for some "antivirus" software, too.

[patric]

The ultimate hacker grafitti and you think they will turn them OFF?
Likely the day will come motorists are gonna get one hell of an eyefull of some naughty shot on an i-Phone....
It will be, as the billboard people say, spectacular.

Looks like someone is already at it:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32JgSJYpL8o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2y4lujgEVs&NR=1

[sauerkraut]

That guy in the train station might just as well been yelling out "arrest me". They have security cameras all over those places.

[Cats Cats Cats]

In Jenks they put up a sign at Sonic and the thing burned my eyes to drive down the road.  It was horrible, it was brighter than any sign in Vegas.  There needs to be limits on these signs because they are so distracting and annoying.

[patric]

In Jenks they put up a sign at Sonic and the thing burned my eyes to drive down the road.  It was horrible, it was brighter than any sign in Vegas.  There needs to be limits on these signs because they are so distracting and annoying.

One thing Ive consistently noted when the sign industry here goes before INCOG or a BOA is they claim there are no real complaints of distracting or overlit signs, or that there are no reports of accidents related to animated or digital billboards.  I personally know the former not to be true (having filed some of those complaints), and, while there isnt consistent documentation by police of the later, you can find cases where things like casino billboards are mentioned in accident reports picked up by the local media.

' Commission member Mary Hill noted an injury accident last week on Interstate 44 near 193rd East Avenue in which a tractor-trailer rig rear-ended a street sweeper.

The truck driver maintained that he had been distracted by a Cherokee Casino sign.

"He stated that he glanced over at the sign for a second, which is kind of like a big-screen TV, and when he looked back he was right on top of the sweeper truck," Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Sheridan O'Neal said. '
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=041109_Ne_A9_Flash9898&archive=yes

When you see examples of that, Email your council, all of them, and CC the Planning Commission.  That way if your particular councilor is lax on the billboard people another agency has a record of the complaint.

On-premise signs like Sonic and Mathis Brothers have much less regulation than off-premise billboards, so maybe it's time to again revisit the sign ordinances (perhaps after the next election when the deck isnt so stacked).

[patric]

I just received a comment from a lighting engineer who re-worked California's energy legislation, to the effect:

"First, the measurement discussed is *one* correct approach.  Second, the criterion is "not more than 0.3 footcandles" or something to that effect.  Third, the Tulsa measurement proposal - if indeed it does not specify the billboard display during the measurement - is absurd and technically incompetent."