Publication Details


Do billboards cause highway accidents?

Type: article

Author(s): UNC Highway Safety Research Center,

Pages: 4

Url: https://trid.trb.org/view/139498

Publication Date: Feb-1974

Journal: Accident Reporter

Abstract: For many years, some people have felt that advertising billboards contributed to highway accidents by distracting the drivers of vehicles. The Highway Safety Research Center (HSRC) in North Carolina has stored on computer tapes officers' narratives from more than 200,000 traffic crashes. The Traffic and Transportation Department of the University of California at Los Angeles requested the HSRC to make a search to determine the role of advertising billboards in causing traffic crashes. Nothing was produced which would clearly indicate that billboards are the cause of distraction and the subsequent crashes. The growing use of officers' narratives points up the importance of the individual officer using great care in describing the factors involved in all types of traffic crashes.