Out of Control: When enviro-consciousness and nanny-statism collide

This can't be for real? Vermont wants to warn drivers that they'll get a ticket if they don't buckle up - so since they've outlawed billboards they're having to advertise the campaign on signs in New Hampshire and Massachusetts? Naaawwww... Tell me another one....

Oh, wait. It's true. I just found another source. (And this is federal money being used for this, folks, so the whole country helped pay for this.) Read Check the map! Are we in Vermont already? by Shawne K. Wickham, in the May 22, 2005 New Hampshire Union Leader online.

It starts:

Jeannie Johnson actually groaned aloud when she heard they had to cut down New Hampshire trees for two Vermont billboards that are quickly becoming infamous.

The story just keeps getting worse.

Johnson is the coordinator of the governor’s highway safety program in Vermont. That agency paid thousands of dollars to put up two billboards in the middle of New Hampshire that have been turning heads and sparking conversations...

Here's the key part:

Johnson told the New Hampshire Sunday News that Vermont got a $24,000 federal grant to put up billboards reminding drivers of the seatbelt law.

Here’s what’s funny: Vermont bans billboards.

So the grant was for Vermont to rent billboards in New Hampshire and Massachusetts instead. Johnson explained past seatbelt surveys have found the areas of Vermont with the lowest rates of seatbelt use are along those borders.

Something different

The feds had made it clear they weren’t happy with Vermont’s seatbelt usage rates. The only way the state was going to get more highway safety money this year was if they tried something different.

Billboards were different.

The feds liked Vermont’s idea and gave them the grant in March. But when Johnson set out to find billboards close to the borders, they had all already been rented long ago.

“We assumed they were going to be right on the border, but it turned out there were no right-on-the-border locations that we could get.”

“We had a lot of money thrown at us and a very short time to get it done.”

Dumb or brilliant?

There were two billboards available in New Hampshire: On the Manchester beltway and on what serves as the local road into Hillsborough, now that the Route 9/202 bypass is open.

There were seven signs available in Massachusetts — and they’re not on the Vermont border either. Six are in Pittsfield in the Berkshires and one is on Interstate 91 near Springfield.

Johnson said she knew it wasn’t ideal. “We said this isn’t perfect, but maybe we can put our toe in the water and see whether this is the dumbest idea we ever came up with, or maybe it’s brilliant.”

“Here’s the deal: We either don’t do it at all and send the money back or give it a shot,” she said. “The fact of the matter is it’s federal money and if it only helps New Hampshire and not Vermont, that doesn’t meet my goals, but it’s good for the country.”

Still, she said, “If we’d known we were going to be in Manchester, we might have worded it differently.”

Our tax dollars at work. Do read the whole Union Leader article. It's priceless.

(In the spirit of full disclosure, you should probably know that I used to be an active member of a group called Buckle Buddies. Our goal, as I understood it when I joined up, was to educate people about the value of buckling up. When the group shifted toward calling for legislation I said "No, no, we shouldn't do that" but it was to no avail. They pressed for laws and I bailed out and fought the proposed legislation. I lost. They won. I'm sorry. It's smart to buckle up, and it's dumb not to, but I think it's nuts that people get targeted by the cops for this sort of thing.)