Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Blue Highway Signs

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

In the US those ubiquitous blue highway signs that tell you which direction you’ll find a Burger King have an interesting backstory. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to the Arthi and Shreea show on I-Hart video app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here. We're just traveling along this highway called Life. Luckily once in a while, there's a big blue sign that says there's a frishes this way. I want to ride it all night long. Now I have that song in my head. I'm very sorry about that. Who was it? Oh I don't know. I think that was his

only hit. I'm gonna look though while you talk. All right well you put this together with our friends from House of house of works in nathan chanler uh... about these blue highway exit signs off mic i'll go ahead and say it you thought you said this one you thought might have been kind of boring but i think it's interesting because you see in the united states will explain for international friends when you're driving down the highway in the u.s. and they probably have these

another countries i imagine and you approach highway exit uh... they probably have these in other countries, I imagine, and you approach a highway exit, you will have these blue signs that the first one will say like, you know, gas and food this way, or maybe gas food and lodging, if you're really lucky. And then as you get closer, it will say, Burger King on this exit, and you get all excited, and then it'll say, waffle house,

and you two of them even, you get even more excited and a BP gas station and a Motel 6 and so you know specific brands of companies, food companies and hotel companies and gasoline, petrol companies and you'll know whether or not you want to stop there or not depending on what you want to eat or what kind of gas you want to get or where you want to stay. Yeah and the whole thing's really standardized. So it's like that company's logo, but it's within a certain size little rectangle on a larger, certain size rectangle.

I think that the things are like 19 feet wide and 10 feet tall. Way bigger than I thought. That's the average size. That's crazy. Well, they need to make it big enough so that you can see that while you're driving by really high speeds and say, oh, there's a burning king. They don't look that big though from the highway. I guess that's the point. By the way, Chuck, I think we're in trouble with Canada again because, of course, the guy who sings life as a highway was as a Canadian singer named Tom Cochran.

And I'm sure he's another national treasure that we just defended. Oh, one hit. What are you talking about? Okay, sorry, Canada, but let's get back to it, Chuck. Man, what do I have against? I love rush. I mean, sure, you know, I'll get it back in this case. Name the song. There you go. Spirit of radio.

Yes. You need to name it when you came up with the next chord. I saw a brief snippet that my buddy sent me to the day of a sound check, them doing that in a sound check in the 70s, and it was just awesome. Did you see the rush documentary? Oh yeah, so good. I had no idea. I mean, I knew that they were like, incredibly technically proficient progrop musicians, but I didn't realize that,

like, they would not, a recording where they didn't play their 20-minute song, perfect note for note, it just got recorded over. It was like a bad take. Like, I can't imagine just the stress of that. Yeah, they're a great story too, because they, there's never any backstabbing

and bad drug things. They were just like, yeah, because they there's never any backstabbing and bad drug things. They were just like, yeah, well, there's three of us will just get along and make music and have great fans. Yeah. All right. Canadians, are we okay now? All right. So back to these signs, they are a form of advertising, which is something I never knew, because I always kind of wondered like, they don't show all the things on that exit. So how do they figure this out? And they figured out because companies pay quite a bit of money to be placed on these signs. Yeah, I think Tennessee rakes in about $8 million a year. Virginia gets $6 million. It's a lot, but I think in the larger budget, it's a bit of a drop in the bucket. But I think most of these states just specifically earmark that money for this program.

So it's like a self-sustaining program, rather than being like, we need to cover this budget cut over here with some of that sweet road sign money. Yeah. I think I was one of the few states that were still state-run there, right? Yeah, there are some contractors that they, I think, 20 states say here have added contractor handle all this for us and just give us like 80% of the gross. But yeah, Iowa handles it themselves or itself. And according to information specialists for the Iowa Department of Transportation, Tracy

Bramble, they have not raised their rates on these signs since 1996. Yeah, that's what you get when the state's doing things, right? Yeah, I guess. I'll bet, I'll bet, like, a new hamster just choked on it. Yeah, they had a big price hike, right? Sure. Well, that's what can happen, apparently, when you're dealing with independent contractors.

They'll just they'll hike up the big the price overnight and all of a sudden, you know, burger kings going, why? Right. The king himself is like, I'm not okay with this. As a matter of fact, it did actually happen in New Hampshire, funny enough. They went from I guess year over year, 500 to 1800, which let me do a little public math. That's like, I think, 380% increase or 17 million% increase. It's one of the two somewhere between there. Well, before we take a break, we will just say

that those signs I mentioned earlier come in in triplicate, not in triplicate. They come in threes, which is to say that first one that you see, which I mentioned, which just says what is available like gas or food or lodging or all three or any combination. Those are called the main line. And then when you get a little bit closer to that exit ramp, that's when you're going to see the specific brand or the chain or whatever. And then I guess, is the trailblazer,

the one, is it at the end of the exit ramp? That's the ramp one. Oh, it's actually on the ramp that says left or right. The main line one is the first one you see, but that still has all the logos. The ramp one is at the end of the ramp saying turn this way or not. So what's the trailblazer?

It is an actual individual sign where after you turn right off of the ramp and like your frishes is another right at that corner where you turn right, that's the trailblazer sign. Yeah, they're kind of rare. I don't know that I've ever seen those. They're kind of rare. All right, so basically generally,

it's the main line in the ramp, right? That's what I, that's how I take it. All right, well, we'll settle in that and we'll take a break and we'll talk more about this right after this. Well now we're on the road Driving in your truck. Why not learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck. It's stuff you should know All right. Hello, hello, Malcolm Gladwell here, host over a visionist history, a show about the overlooked and the misunderstood stories you won't hear anywhere else.

Like our ongoing obsessive campaign to blow up the world's most bogus color-tracking system. Why not just throw in a few extra zeros? Well witness me after years of fancy public speaking learning that I kind of have to start over. The tone that you had throughout the debate was very similar to some of the students that I do work with and that's what I teach them not to do. We're making more revisionist history for you this year than ever from places all across this great country emergency rooms huge theaters small towns and shooting mages and

you want to put your thumb up like this and you're gonna pull the trigger with this finger here okay. Listen to revisionist history on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Hey everyone, it's Devon Simone. Hi, I'm Tori Diel and we've got some very exciting news for our fellow challenge fans. The weight is over, the challenge USA is back for a second season. Featuring fan favorite contestants from your favorite CBS show, Survivor, Big Brother, and the Amazing Race. But that's not all because for the first time

in challenge USA history, legendary vets from MTV's The Challenge are entering the competition. Woo, you mean that's like you? Yes, like you. Yeah, I'm on this season, so I'll make sure that you guys get the inside scoop on everything that went down. And I'll make I'll make sure that you guys get the inside scoop on everything that went down. And I'll make sure she makes sure that you'll get the inside scoop on everything that

went down. You know we gonna keep it honest. Yes, so join us on MTV's official challenge podcast as we watch CBS Reality Titans compete against challenge legends for the title of America's Best. Listen to MTV's official challenge podcast starting on August August 11th on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. So Chuck, it's actually really discriminating who can be on or what kind of business can be on these signs. As a matter of fact, it seems unconstitutional to some degree.

Well, yeah, I mean, if you're a movie theater, you can't be on them, which is interesting. Or an adult entertainment place? Yeah, yeah, or if you're a church, they allow things like, well, I mean, generally it's like gas stations, hotels and fast food chains. But you will see things now. I believe that a year's later, they said you could put like tourist attractions on there. So if it's like agritourism or there's like a winery or a museum or a zoo or something like that, those can be on there now. I'm sure there's a church out there like,

no, seriously, you should come to our services. There's so much fun. It's basically an attraction. Yeah, pretty much. They prioritize the green, but there has to be a certain distance between the signs from each other and signs from the exit.

I think it's 800 feet apart from each other. So if it's an exit where you can't get them 800 feet apart, because it can't be close to the green signs that say, you know, like actual highway miles and stuff like that and the exits, those take priority. So they will jump the blue signs in those cases. Yeah, you're S-O-L. Yeah.

And speaking of distances, Chuck, they actually prioritize businesses that are closer to the highways than others. Yeah. And speaking of distances, Chuck, they actually prioritize businesses that are closer to the highways than others. Yeah. I think Florida, if you're within three miles of the exit, you're given priority. And if you're beyond six miles from the exit, don't even try Florida says, just keep walking.

Yeah, and I don't think it's exactly the same in every state, but I think most states have that requirement, but it can be further away for a tourism site. Yes, but there are some other typical requirements, a very state-by-state, but generally, the, if you want to advertise on one of these logo signs, you need to have public restrooms that are available, you need to have drinking water, even are available. You need to have drinking

water, even if it's just a fountain or a dude with a bucket. You need to be open during regular business hours. And the more you're open, say 24 hours or seven days a week, you're going to be prioritized. So if you want to advertise your after-party members only vampire live action role playing club, probably going to get turned down. Yeah. Unless you are in a pretty rural area that has space on the sign because sometimes they have space and these private companies will try and or I guess sometimes in the case of a state run operation, they will sort of hustle to try and get stuff on there.

They'll try and sell the spot, like, hey, I got a spot for sale. Can you imagine cold calling for that? I don't understand what you're trying to sell me. This is a job? Yes, it is. Thank you. Please stop making it worse. As far as money goes, that obviously varies from state to state

And how stuff works in this article they used Nebraska for an example 1200 bucks per sign, so double that if you want both exits in both directions New Jersey's about twice that so you know close to five grand in New Jersey if you want to mark your Your gas station each way. But there's something to be said about that. Yes, five grand a year is a significant amount of money for a small business. But if you look at it in terms of its marketing budget, it probably pays for itself very,

very quickly. And that's one of the things about these signs is they were a compromise that came out of an act that Lyndon Johnson signed at the behest of his wife Lady Bird called the Highway Beautification Act in October of 1965. And it basically said billboards are getting out of hand. We need to really limit them. And businesses said, well, wait a minute, we need something. We're going to all go under if we can't advertise on the highway. That's like our lifeblood. So the compromise that they came up with with with these standardized government signs that allow you to put your logo on in a certain square within a certain distance and make sure you have that bucket of water that that guy's handing.

Yeah, it's pretty great. I mean, billboards can be fun. I enjoy a fun billboard, but I could also see being in the car with Lady Bird Johnson back in the early 60s and being like these things are everywhere and it's starting to look junky. Yeah. Some states outlawed them all together. I think Vermont, Maine, Hawaii, and Alaska, you can't even have billboards. Very nice. Which is pretty cool. What I see a lot is when I go to the camp and stuff and if you're traveling around rural, at least in the southeast, they may have these everywhere. But if you're just on off-road, back roads in the rural areas of Georgia and you come to a T-stop, people, because that's just the side of the road basically, and right in

front of you, the back of the road that makes the top of the tee, there will be 30 or 40 just homemade signs of the pressure washer guy, the tree removal guy, the house painter, the electrician, any sort of home service, and they're just everywhere. Yeah. And it's kind of helpful, but it looks really junky. Yeah.

Lady Bird Johnson would hate that. But I've called those numbers. It is kind of helpful. Oh, well, then the system works. I mean, it definitely works. It's just they're so they're just done by people. So they're just like, here's one, here's one, here's one, here's one. I can't remember what I saw it. I might have been 60 minutes or news hour or something like that, but there was a there's a dude a graphic designer in New York who just goes around and takes those signs and remakes them with like applies graphic design principles and just gives them to the business. Oh, like, here's a good one that's, it, things are spelled correctly and it looks visually

interesting. Yeah, and there's a picture of the pie that you're saying, you know, that we're advertising in Blue Marker before. Oh, that's pretty cool. Yeah, I like that. Um, I got a little piece of trivia courtesy of our friend's 99% invisible if you want to end on it. Oh, that's pretty cool. Yeah, I like that. I got a little piece of trivia courtesy of our friends 99% invisible if you want to end on it. Oh, I miss Roman. Let's hear it. So if you are driving and you see these logo signs, the big blue signs, they are going to come up in a certain

order every single time. Are you ready for that order? If they do, whenever asks you, they appear in this order. Camping, lodging, food, and then gas. Wow. Yeah, I guess wow is the appropriate response to that? No, I love that. And that's a reminder for me to get in touch with Roman and say hi, it's been too long. Tell him I said hi too. He never gave me his email.

The great Roman Mars. Well Chuck just praised Roman Mars, so of course, short stuff is out. What's the most important thing to do? Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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