Will Phil Snow make EMU football better? Who knows. Although, under the current nowhere-but-up conditions, all coaching changes will result in equal or better results. Snow appears to have a personal history mentoring Ron English when they were together at Cal.

But really, I think that there’s a lot of exaggeration when it comes to the whole “distracted driver” thing. Talking on your cell phone might mean that you are splitting your attention between that and driving and that might not be as safe as ideal. But I think the same can also be said about talking with other passengers, listening to the radio, eating food, etc. Heck, I have no research on this, but I’ll bed you the number of accidents caused by spilled coffee is pretty high. What are we going to do, ban drinking coffee while driving? Ban cup-holders?

Though I do think the texting while driving is dangerous, and when I do talk on the phone while driving, I try as often as possible to use my headset.

“Coutilish also mentioned that being spotlighted in a world-wide publication came with a bitter-sweet reaction.

“It was sweet because having our photo in the Times is awesome,” he said. “It gets our name out to potentially billions of people in a publication seen around the world. But at the same time it was bitter because the article was focused on something that could be conceived as negative.”

Yes, one could say that using a form of expensive advertising, that consumes vast quantities of energy, and that may distract drivers in ways that increase the risks of highway accidents, “could be conceived as negative”. Significantly, there’s no reliable evidence that billboard advertising affects students’ choices about what university to attend (Ted has been able to provide none when asked for it).

Just as significantly, each of the disadvantages of digitial billboards – costs, energy waste, and traffic safety – was brought up as “Mr. Billboards” launched EMU into this billboard campaign, and dismissed without serious dialogue. Good deal for the billboard industry, bad deal for EMU.

There’s no upside for EMU in having this picture in the New York Times, despite Ted’s optimistic spin on it.

I hear additional research underway is finding that to really read the messages on digitial billboards, drivers must look at the quickly changing ads on the sign longer than previously assumed – and looking away from the road is ill advised in all driver education classes, isn’t it? They are clearly distracting. What’s not yet entirely proven is how dangerous these distractions are. As bad as cellphones? Not likely – except for the drivers who really really want to see what the sign is saying….The more effective the sign is a getting attention, the more distracting the sign is to the driver and hence more dangerous. Danger will likely be closely associated with effectiveness as a medium, or so I hear from scholars studying these issues.

Education First!

Think of it is a deferred payment from your last fundraiser.

There is one near the Ypsi exit on I-94 where the city and EMU used to have a billboard– now there’s one of these digital billboards. there was some talk about this in July 2008 here, btw.