Ban mobile billboards

Driving down 29th this afternoon, I was accosted and forced on pain of risking death to sit through a marketing campaign. Does that sound crazy? It is.

A box truck covered with bright LED screens pulled out in front of me at an intersection. I then had to drive next to this behemoth with its abrasive screen shining in my peripheral vision, distracting me from the road. I tried to look away from the signs but couldn’t because I had to merge into that lane and had to keep eyes on the truck to avoid a collision. I would love to hear from anyone a defense of this terrible invention. Who on the road wants to see these?

There is a deeper problem. The assumption that We can be advertised to against our consent, with no service as compensation for our attention. Cable TV can advertise to you because you are enjoying their entertainment. Same even for Twitter and Facebook, as problematic as those corporations are. But for a truck to force its advertisements upon us is wrong. In fact, if I decided NOT to look at the truck, I would be putting my property and life in danger as I could very possibly have hit that huge vehicle had I succeeded in ignoring it.

Everyone should hate mobile billboards. They aren’t just loud annoyances, clogging traffic on an otherwise peaceful drive. They are wrong. Mobile Billboards should not exist in America.

Tanner McCoon

Spokane