Do you think the idea of California license plates than can show electronic ads is:

1.  A great idea, about time.

2.  Possibly questionable, but let’s study it.

3.  One of the top ten worst ideas of all time.

If you answered yes to #1, don’t bother reading further.  If you answered yes to #2, you’re in line with 25 California State Senators who voted to do just that, study the idea.  If you answered yes to #3, you can spend the rest of the day (or evening) pondering how woefully befuddled those legislators are to even spend a minute contemplating the idea.

The perpetrator-in-chief is Los Angeles area Senator Curren Price, who apparently sniffs some revenue for a state in perpetual budget crisis as well as perpetual paralysis between cutting spending and raising taxes. How much revenue?  Who knows?  In numerous news articles on the subject, Price is quoted as saying that he’s only proposing a study of the idea, and that the study will not  be funded by the state?  Huh? Who will fund it, then?  And how will that affect the objectivity of the study’s conclusions?

Here’s the legislative analysis of the proposal.  And below is one of the TV news pieces on the issue, with pros (gulp) and cons.

Related posts:

1. Consumer Reports: California considers ads on car license plates
2. Sorry Amber, for Calif. Republicans you’re just not as important as this precious, precious money.
3. Swine Flu Is the Hottest New Viral Marketing Idea (Gawker)

Smart Plate, a San Francisco startup, is reportedly developing a digital license, though it does not have a model that is production ready.

A CNN story suggests that these plates could display paid advertising and public service announcements (PSAs). Further, the new plates could benefit the Amber Alert system, with notifications flashed on plates across the state to apprehend criminals. It’s conceivable, though, that some drivers may not agree or endorse an advertised product or PSA.

In a nation already overrun by advertising, and with distracted driving fatalities and injuries on the rise, it seems like a no-brainer to defeat such legislation that could only make our roads more dangerous.

And California, as opponents to the ads point out, already has some of the worst traffic jams in the country. It stands to reason that ads popping up on cars will only add to driver distraction.

I understand that desperate times call for desperate measures,  but it strikes me that this fanciful idea could create more problems than it solves.

What do you think? Post your thoughts and alternative suggestions in the comments below.

via Consumer Reports Cars Blog: Budget brainstorm: California considers ads on car license plates.

Related posts:

1. Sorry Amber, for Calif. Republicans you’re just not as important as this precious, precious money.
2. With billboards, cities are facing the digital decision
3. Ads on Barf Bags

Now, the city has three full time people working on the code-enforcement detail stopping illegal billboards. Unfortunately, San Franciscans who don’t want to be bombarded with billboards across the city-scape have a new problem to contend with… the billboard industry’s legal team.

As this article in today’s San Francisco Chronicle explains, although the city has issued citations in over 250 cases, almost none of the fines have been paid by the billboard owners.

According to city Planning Department officials, a three-person enforcement team has located more than 250 illegal billboards and sought fines against the company owners and landlords totaling about $1.5 million. Only $50,500 of that has been collected, however, in part because the majority of the fines are tied up in unresolved legal actions. “We’re trying to stop any new billboards from going up and finding the ones that have been put up without permits,” said Dan Sider, the city planner in charge of the program. “Outdoor advertising is a lucrative industry, so the companies are hiring very skilled lawyers who are waging legal challenges.” It didn’t take long for the outdoor advertising industry, which handles $7.2 billion in business each year, to file legal challenges. Two cases recently argued in Los Angeles federal district court may not bode well for San Francisco. In both cases – which are now pending at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals – the district courts ruled that restrictions on billboards are not enforceable because they violated the Constitution. In one case, the court ruled that Los Angeles created a double standard by restricting private advertising signs, but simultaneously sold ad space on bus shelters and other public places. “It’s a violation of the First Amendment if the city allows some signs, but not others without justification,” said Rex Heinke, a Los Angeles attorney, who is representing a company in one of the Los Angeles cases.

I guess we’ll have to see what the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (also located in San Francisco) has to say about this issue. Once again the business interests fall back on the First Amendment to purportedly protect their trampling on the public’s enjoyment of a blight-free public space. Of course, the First Amendment, as any grade school kid will tell you, is the right to free speech enshrined in the Constitution. However, the right is not absolute, but rather elastic. It applies absolutely to some speech and less so to others. The most protected is political speech, while commercial speech requires much less deference. It remains to be seen how much import the judges on the Ninth Circuit will attach to visual clutter…

Related posts:

1. Oakland’s Ban on “Visual Blight” Upheld in Court
2. Clear Channel Messed with LA Weekly and Lost!
3. New York City’s Struggle to Take Down Illegal Billboards

The L.A. Times is reporting Clear Channel has its eye on 674 state owned digital billboards on California Highways. The billboards were installed to alert drivers to road hazards and for Amber Alerts providing “urgent bulletins in the most serious child-abduction cases.”

But now the state is listening to Clear Channel.

Apparently California needs money. In the Governor’s budget it says, “chronic underinvestment has increased congestion and has resulted in California having some of the most distressed highway and road conditions in the United States.”

Of course, this is the neo-liberal fantasy:

1. the government under-funds infrastructure
2. infrastructure falls apart
3. Conservatives claim that government can’t be trusted and we need private industry and competition!
4. Conservatives then make private, exclusive deals with corporations so they can sweep in to the rescue/for the profit.

I can’t imagine this proposal going very far, but the whining about being broke and the publicity that follows may be intended to prepare voters for a comparatively less disgusting option.

As argued in the L.A. Times story, yes it’s an eyesore, yes it might be dangerous to drivers, yes it will train people pay less attention to a sign designed to help abducted children and tell them about emergencies – thereby nearly nullifying it. But more important that that, it’s public space and public property that belongs to us, not corporations.

But perhaps you’re more fiscally minded. This is another bad deal made by politicians with advertising and marketing companies. (Politicians who are most likely being lobbied by and receiving campaign donations from Clear Channel.) Sen. George Runner (R-Lancaster) says the money will be used for highway repair and _potentially_ may be “tens of millions of dollars.” The California Transportation Commission’s annual budget is $28,466,000,000.

Another drop in the bucket. Sorry Amber.

Thanks for the tip from reader Sam.

Related posts:

1. In Florida, Billboards Trump Trees : NPR
2. The Golden Gate Billboard
3. Amber MacLean