Click It or Ticket - WOW!

I must commend the creative savant at Caltrans who brainstormed the latest clever phrase that graces the electronic traffic message signs lining our Southern California freeways. As we took a nice drive on this Memorial Day 2006, we were reminded every few miles by these signs to "CLICK IT OR TICKET." Isn't it nice to know that our tax dollars are being put to such good use? Thank you, Caltrans!

Now I must admit that the Amber Alerts that appear on those same electronic signs have been useful; they have resulted in the safe return of abducted children. And one can argue that just saving one innocent life like that justifies the cost of the signs. Being a parent, I can certainly understand that way of thinking. But does that mean that we can't use the non-Amber alert time for something more useful than either a blank board or, what might be even worse, CLICK IT OR TICKET???

Briefly a few months ago, I could look at the sign near the freeway onramp when leaving work and it would tell me the estimated time to a couple of destinations. But for some reason that information disappeared, replaced with either the familiar blank screen or that dumb message I won't bother to print again. Why would they get rid of that ETA info? Because the people working at Caltrans were too lazy to deal with anything that was dynamic instead of static? Because someone got a cheap sleazy lawyer to file a lawsuit because their client relied on the information on that board and was late a few minutes?

Well for whatever the reason, the bottom line is that it is a shame to have to look up at these underutilized wonders of technology each day and be reminded of how our tax dollars are misused.