There’s a prevailing idea among comedians that the key to a good joke is the element of surprise. Perhaps that’s why the highway sign shtick of the Arizona Department of Transportation has been so successful: It’s comedy in the least expected of places.
Written by Lauren Loftus | Phoenix Magazine
n 2015, 895 people died in crashes on Arizona roadways. It was the deadliest stretch in seven years, according to ADOT’s annual report, which indicated speeding, impaired driving and failure to wear a seat belt were factors in more than a third of collisions. Go ahead, try to make a joke now.
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“You become very sensitive to it. When you see crashes every day… it hits you,” says Doug Pacey, ADOT Communications Project Manager. But leave it to a sports reporter turned governmental agency public information officer to find humor in an operations center looping traffic cam footage all day, every day. Over Thanksgiving weekend in 2015 – often the deadliest driving days in the U.S. – Pacey posted the first in what would become a long list of viral safety messages on the overhead variable message signs on state highways. “Drinking & driving go together like peas & guac.”
