{"id":357863,"date":"2021-10-25T17:08:13","date_gmt":"2021-10-25T14:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/one-interns-idea-to-curb-road-rage-in-calgary-with-humour\/"},"modified":"2021-10-25T17:08:13","modified_gmt":"2021-10-25T14:08:13","slug":"one-interns-idea-to-curb-road-rage-in-calgary-with-humour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/one-interns-idea-to-curb-road-rage-in-calgary-with-humour\/","title":{"rendered":"#One intern’s idea to curb road rage in Calgary\u2014with humour"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#One intern’s idea to curb road rage in Calgary\u2014with humour<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n The drive into Calgary is worth a chuckle, thanks to Joseph Kruis, an intern in the city of Calgary’s transportation department\n <\/div>\n
\n Every Tuesday after the workday has begun in Calgary, Joseph Kruis can count on a handful of friends to drop him texts or Facebook<\/a> messages with laugh-cry emojis or remarks like: \u201cnice one.\u201d They\u2019ll relay the pun or quip that made them chuckle a few minutes earlier, but Kruis is more likely to smirk than laugh out loud. He\u2019s already heard that jokey message. Odds are he helped write it.<\/p>\n

Kruis, 25, is the brains and wisecracking sensibility behind a new program that aims to bring a little joy to the humdrum commutes of Calgary motorists. Each Tuesday, several roadside digital signs along the city\u2019s major routes take respite from their normally grey messaging in favour of something sunnier. Instead of \u201cAirport Trail in 20 min\u201d or \u201cIncident in left lane ahead, expect delays,\u201d a sign might read:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not a firework. Don\u2019t drive lit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTexting and driving? Oh cell no!\u201d<\/p>\n

During the Calgary Stampede, the signboards riffed on the naughty country song Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)<\/em> with \u201cSave a horse\/Ride a cab home.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0A doorway to a hidden past in Calgary\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The city of Calgary\u2019s transportation department calls them Traffic Tuesdays: each week, drivers are greeted with a message meant to bring awareness, safety messages and, ideally, a smile to their faces. City staff theorize that happ<\/a>y rush-hour drivers are less likely to succumb to road rage or make mistakes born of impulse.<\/p>\n

The idea originated in a long-running safety campaign from Iowa\u2019s freeway system, Message Monday. But it was Kruis who suggested his department adapt the program to Calgary\u2019s roads after watching Iowans extol it during a webinar last November. He had only started work with the city seven months earlier as an engineer-in-training, working on various small transportation network improvements. He\u2019d spend rush hours helping traffic technicians toggle traffic-light timing, reverse lane directions and switch messages on those digital signs.<\/p>\n

When he was first learning the sign system, a thought about the messaging crossed his mind: \u201cIt\u2019s dry, with no human touch. It would be kind of cool to de-robotize it, make it more of a human approach.\u201d The Iowa program showed him how, and soon his penchant for everyday one-liners that sometimes make his fianc\u00e9e\u2019s eyes roll became part of his job.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Jyoti Gondek and Amarjeet Sohi: A joint interview with Alberta\u2019s new progressive mayors\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Kruis\u2019s supervisor readily embraced the idea, and civic managers leapt aboard\u2014as long as they could vet the messages. There is an art to being funny on public roadside letter boards, Kruis and his colleagues have learned. First, with a maximum of 27 characters per sign frame, it\u2019s vastly more restrictive than Twitter. Pop culture references such as \u201cBaby Yoda uses The Force\/But still needs a car seat\u201d tend to be hits, as do ones that address driver pet peeves: \u201cCamp in the Rockies\/Not in the left lane\u201d was a winner. In the rejects pile are messages that sound even remotely like swearing, such as July\u2019s never displayed \u201cStampede is over\/Slow the buck down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iowa released its message archive to Kruis\u2019s team, along with some warnings about their own missteps, including the use of overly grim maxims. That state\u2019s transportation department got blowback for using \u201cCrashes don\u2019t kill teens; bad choices do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calgary launched its weekly pilot program with the Baby Yoda car seat message (on May 4, a.k.a. Star Wars<\/em> Day), causing bemusement among drivers who thought it might be a \u201cMay the Fourth\u201d one-off. But when it was publicized as a regular feature, they embraced it. The city invited residents to submit their own ideas and got 250 within the first two weeks.<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0A low carbon world is coming to Alberta\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As Kruis inches toward full-fledged engineer status, his resum\u00e9<\/em> already featuring a well-received new civic program, he marvels at having found that rare engineering post in which wielding quips is part of the work. \u201cWhen I told my fianc\u00e9<\/em>e\u2019s family about this project,\u201d he says, \u201cmy future mother-in-law was like, gosh, he found a job that is totally up his alley.\u201d<\/p>\n

No pun intended, surely.<\/p>\n\n

This article appears in print in the November 2021 issue of<\/em> Maclean\u2019s magazine with the headline, \u201cExit in two smiles.\u201d Subscribe to the monthly print magazine here<\/a>.<\/em>
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