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Short Stuff: Blue Highway Signs · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry's here. We're just traveling along this
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: highway called life. Luckily, once in a while there's a
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: big blue sign that says, there's a frishes this way.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: I want to ride it all night long. Now I
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: have that.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Song in myn I'm very sorry about that. Who was
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: that Mark Oh, I don't know. I think that was
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: his only hit. I'm going to look though while you talk.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: All right, well, you put this together with our friends
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: from How Stuff Works and Nathan Chandler about these blue
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: highway exit signs. Off, Mike, I'll go ahead and say it.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: You thought you said this one, you thought might have
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: been kind of boring. But I think it's interesting because
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: you see in the United States, we'll explain for our
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: international friends. When you're driving down the highway in the US,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: and they probably have these in other countries, I imagine,
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: and you approach a highway exit, you will have these
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: blue signs that the first one will say like, you know,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: gas and food this way, or maybe gas, food and
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: lodging if you're really lucky, and then as you get
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: closer it will say Burger King on this exit, and
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: you get all excited, and then they'll say waffle house
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: and two of them even you get even more excited,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: and a BP gas station and a motel six and
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: so you know specific brands of companies, food companies and
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: hotel companies and gasoline petrol companies, and you'll know whether
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: or not you want to stop there or not, depending
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: on what you want to eat or what kind of
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: gas you want to get or where you want to stay.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the whole thing's really standardized, so it's like
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: that company's logo, but it's within a certain size little
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: rectangle on a larger, certain sized rectangle. I think the
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: things are like nineteen feet wide and ten feet tall.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Way bigger than I thought that's the average size. That's crazy.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Well, they need to make it big enough so that
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: you can see that while you're driving by really high
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: speeds and say, oh, there's a burden king.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: They don't look that big though from the highway. I
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: guess that's the point.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: By the way, Chuck, I think we're in trouble with
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Canada again, because of course the guy who sings Life
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: as a Highway was as a Canadian singer named Tom Cochrane,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: and I'm sure he's another national treasure that we've just
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: defended one hit.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: What are you talking about?
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, sorry Canada, but let's get back to it, Chuck.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Man, What do I have against I love Rush? I
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: mean sure you know.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Name the song.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Spirit of Radio.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, you didn't even need to name it when you
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: came up with like the next chord.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: I saw a brief snippet that my buddy sent me
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: the other day of a sound check them doing that
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: in a sound check in the seventies, and it was
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: just awesome.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Did you see the Rush documentary?
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, so good.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I had no idea. I mean I knew that they
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: were like incredibly technically proficient prog rock musicians, but I
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: didn't realize that like they would not they like a
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: recording where they didn't play their twenty minute song perfect
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: note for note. It just got recorded over. It was
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: like a bad take, Like I can't imagine just the
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: stress of that.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're a great story too, because they there's never
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: any backstabbing and bad drug things that were just like, yeah,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: three of us will just get along and make music
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: and have great fans. Yep, all right, Canadians, are we
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: okay now? All right? So back to these signs. They
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: are a form of advertising, which is something I never
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: knew because I always kind of wonder, like, they don't
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: show all the things on that exit, So how do
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: they figure this out? And they figure it out because
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: companies pay quite a bit of money to be placed
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: on these signs.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think Tennessee breaks in about eight million dollars
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: a year. Virginia gets six million dollars. It's a lot,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: but you know, I think in the larger budget it's
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: a bit of a drop in the bucket. But I
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: think most of these these states just specifically earmark that
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: money for this program, so it's like a self sustaining
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: program rather than being like, we need to cover this
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: budget cut over here with some of that sweet road
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: sign money.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think Iowa was one of the few states
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: that were it's still state run there, right.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there are some contractors that they I think twenty
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: states say here have have added contractor handle all this
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: for us and just give us like eighty percent of
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: the gross. But yeah, Iowa handles it themselves or itself.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: And according to information specialists for the Iowa Department of
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Transportation Tracy Bramble. They have not raised their rates on
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: these signs since nineteen ninety six.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what you get when the state's doing things right.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess I'll bet, I'll bet like New Hampshire
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: just choked on it.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they had a big price hike, right, sure, Well
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: that's what can happen. Apparently when you're dealing with independent contractors,
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: they'll just they'll hike up the big the price overnight
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, you know, Burger King's going, what.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Right? The King himself is like, I'm not okay with this.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, it did actually happen in
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire. Funny enough, they went from I guess, year
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: over year five hundred to eighteen hundred's a lot, which
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: let me do a little public math. It's like, I
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: think three hundred and eighty percent increase or seventeen million
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: percent increase. It's one of the two, yeah, somewhere between there.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Well, before we take a break, we will just say
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: that those signs I mentioned earlier come in in triplicate.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Not in triplicate, they come in threes, which is to
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: say that first one that you see, which I mentioned,
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: which just says what is available like gas or food
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: or lodging or all three or any combination. Those are
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: called the main line. And then when you get a
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: little bit closer to that exit ramp, that's when you're
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: gonna see the specific you know, brand or the chain
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: or whatever. And then I guess is the trailblazer the one?
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Is it at the end of the exit ramp.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: That's the ramp one.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, like it's actually on the ramp that says like
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: left or right.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: The mainline one, the main line one is the first
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: one you see, but it still has all the logos.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: The ramp one is that the end of the ramp
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: saying turn this way or not.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: So what's the trailblazer?
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: It is an actual individual sign where after you turn
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: right off of the ramp and like your fishes is
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: you know another right at that corner where you and right,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: that's the trailblazer sign.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've ever seen those.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're kind of rare.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: All right, So basically generally it's the main line and
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: then the ramp.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Right, That's what I That's how I take it.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: All right, Well, we'll settle on that. Then we'll take
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: a break and we'll talk more about this right after this. Well,
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: now we're on the road driving in your truck.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Want to learn a thing.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Or two from Josh camp Tuck.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: It's stuff you should know, all right, So, Chuck, it's
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: actually really discriminating who can be on or what kind
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: of business can be on these signs. As a matter
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: of fact, it seems unconstitutional to some degree.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean if you're a movie theater you
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: can't be on them, which is interesting.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Or an adult entertainment place.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, or if you're a church they allow things
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: like well, I mean generally it's like gas stations, hotels,
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: and fast food chains, but you will see things. Now
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: I believe that years later they said you could put
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: like tourist attractions on there. So if it's like agritourism
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: or there's like a winery or a museum or a
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: zoo or something like that, huh, those can be on there. Now.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a church out there, like, No, seriously,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: you should come to our services. There's so much fun.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: It's basically an attraction.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much. They prioritize the green, but there has
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: to be a certain distance between, like the signs from
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: each other, and signs from the exit. I think it's
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: eight hundred feet apart from each other. So if it's
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: an exit where you can't get them eight hundred feet
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: apart because it can't be close to the green signs
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: that say, you know, like actual highway miles and stuff
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: like that, and exits, those take priority, so they will
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: jump the blue signs in those cases.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're sol Yeah. And speaking of distances, Chuck, they
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: actually prioritize businesses that are closer to the highways than others.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: I think Florida, if you're within three miles of the exit,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: you're given priority, and if you're beyond six miles from
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: the exit, don't even try. Florida says just keep walking.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think I don't think it's exactly the
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: same in every state, but I think most states have
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: that requirement. But it can be further away for a tourism.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Site, yes, but there are some other typical requirements you know,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: a very state by state, but generally, if you want
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: to advertise on one of these logo signs, you need
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: to have public restrooms that are available. You need to
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: have drinking water, even if it's just a fountain, or
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: a dude with a bucket. You need to be open
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: during regular business hours, and the more you're open, say
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: twenty four hours or seven days a week, you're going
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: to be prioritized. So if you want to advertise your
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: after party members only vampire Live Action role playing club, right,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: probably going to get turned down.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, unless you are in a pretty rural area that
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: has space on the sign, because sometimes they have space,
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: and these private companies will try it, or I guess
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: sometimes in the case of a state run operation, they
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: will sort of hustle to try and get stuff on there.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: You know, they'll try and sell the spot, like, hey,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: I got a spot for sale.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine cold calling for that? I don't understand
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: what you're trying to sell.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: Me, Like this is a job, Yes it is, sir, Thank.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: You, Please stop making it worse.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: As far as money goes, that obviously varies from state
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: to state and how stuff works. In this article, they
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: used Nebraska for an example, twelve hundred bucks per sign,
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: so double that if you want both exits in both directions.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: New Jersey's about twice that, so you know, close to
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: five grand in New Jersey. If you want to mark
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: your your gas station each way.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: But there's there's something to be said about that. Yes,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: you know, five grand a year is a significant amount
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: of money for a small business, but if you look
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: at it in terms of its marketing budget, yeah, sure,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: it probably pays for itself very very quickly. And that's
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: one of the things about these signs is they are
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: They were a compromise that came out of an act
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: that Lyndon Johnson signed at the behest of his wife, Ladybird,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: called the Highway Beautification Act in October of nineteen sixty five,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: and it basically said, billboards are getting out of hand.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: We need to really limit them. And businesses said, well,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, we need something. We're gonna all go
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: under if we can't advertise on the highway. That's like
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: our life blood. So the compromise that they came up
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: with were these standardized government signs that allow you to
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: put your logo on in a certain square, within a
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: certain distance, and make sure you have that bucket of
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: water that that guy's handing.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah it's pretty great. I mean, billboards can be fun.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: I enjoy a fun billboard, but I could also see
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: being in the car with Lady Bird Johnson back in
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: the early sixties and being like, these things are everywhere
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: and it's starting to look junkie. Some states outlawed them
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: all together. I think Vermont, may and Hawaiian Alaska you
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: can't even have billboards very nice, which is pretty cool.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: What I see a lot is when I go to
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: the camp and stuff, and if you're traveling around rural
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: at least in the southeast, they may have these everywhere.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: But if you're just on off road back roads in
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: the rural areas of Georgia and you come to a
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: t stop, people, because that's just the side of the
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: road basically, and right in front of you at the
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: back of the road that makes the top of the
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: tee that will be thirty or forty just homemade signs
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: of the pressure washer guy or the tree removal guy,
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: the house painter or the electrician, any sort of home
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: service and they're just everywhere. Yeah, and it's kind of helpful,
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: but it looks really junky.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Lady Bird Johnson would hate that.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: But I've called those numbers. It is kind of helpful.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Oh well, then the system works.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, it definitely works. It's just they're so they're
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: just done by people. So they're just like, here's one,
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: here's one, here's one, here's one.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: I can't remember what I saw it on. It might
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: have been sixty Minutes or News Hour or something like that.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: But there's a dude, a graphic designer in New York
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: who just goes around and takes those signs and remakes
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: them with like applies graphic design principles and just gives
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: them to the business.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Like, here's a good one that things are spelled directly
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: and it looks visually interesting.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's a picture of the pie that you're saying.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: You know that you were advertising in blue marker before.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's pretty cool.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I like that. I got a little piece of
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: trivia courtesy of our friends ninety nine percent invisible. If
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: you want to end on.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: It, oh I miss Roman, let's hear it.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: So if you are driving and you see these logo signs,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: the big blue signs, they are going to come up
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: in a certain order every single time. Are you ready
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: for that order? If anyone never asks you, they appear
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: in this order camping, lodging, food, and then gas.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah great, I guess wow is the appropriate response to that.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: No, I love that, and that's a reminder for me
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: to get in touch with Roman and say Hi. It's
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: been too long.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Tell him I said hi too. He never gave me
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: his email.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: The great Roman Mars.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Well, Chuck just praised Roman Mars, So of course short
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Stuff is out.
• 14:00
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• 14:03
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