Star Tribune
Feds crack down on funny highway signs but MnDOT to just ‘Shake it Off’
The Minnesota Department of Transportation in June tapped into the Taylor Swift hysteria ahead of her Twin Cities concerts by posting a message on its electronic signs that read “Cut off? Don’t Get Bad Blood. Shake it Off.”
The nod to Swift’s pop hit is the kind of lighthearted message MnDOT has been using for more than a decade each Monday to encourage safe driving.
Now federal authorities want the jokes, slogans and quirky sayings often drawn from movies, TV shows, music and other slices of pop culture to stop.
New directives from the Federal Highway Administration call for traffic safety messages to be “simple, direct, brief and clear” because nonstandard messages like MnDOT’s can be “misunderstood or understood only by a limited segment of road users.”
States such as Minnesota have two years to comply with the changes included in the 1,100-page manual, which sets national standards for use of traffic control devices, including changeable message boards. The revised manual was updated last month and goes into effect Thursday.
Despite the order from Washington, MnDOT says it will still be business as usual, and the practice of displaying weekly pithy traffic safety messages on overhead and roadside digital signs will continue.
“We do not anticipate they will change the way MnDOT shares creative highway safety messages with the public that helps improve safety on our Minnesota roadways,” said spokeswoman Anne Meyer.
Before “Message Monday,” MnDOT used its electronic message boards sparingly to display messages such as “1 in 4 Deaths Caused by Drunken Drivers” and “1 in 5 Traffic Deaths are Speed Related.” But when traffic fatalities failed to drop, the agency instituted “Message Monday” as a way to deliver hard hitting messages — to wear seat belts, obey speed limits and not drive impaired — with a lighter, more positive tone.
MnDOT owns and operates the signs.
The changes at the federal level garnered support from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.
“We respect and agree with the changes they are making in regards to the use of these important public messaging tools,” said Mike Hanson, director of the Department of Public Safety’s Office of Traffic Safety. “The ultimate goal is to improve traffic safety as a result of effective signage policies.”
The Minnesota Department of Transportation closed part of a state highway Wednesday evening near Austin because of a “major hazardous materials release” in the area.
Hwy. 56 from Hayfield to Waltham, a stretch covering about five miles, was closed in both directions and drivers were directed to follow a detour to Blooming Prairie on U.S. Hwy. 218.
No information on the hazardous materials released was immediately available.
A federal judge dismissed a civil lawsuit against Minnesota state trooper Ryan Londregan in the shooting death of Ricky Cobb II during a 2023 traffic stop.
The decision is the latest development in a case that has drawn heated debate over excessive use of force by law enforcement. Criminal charges against Londregan were dismissed by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty in June, saying the prosecution didn’t have the evidence to proceed with a case.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel granted Londregan’s motion to dismiss the civil suit, arguing he acted reasonably when he opened fire as Cobb’s vehicle lurched forward with another state trooper partly inside.
Londregan’s attorney Chris Madelsaid Wednesday that it’s been a “long, grueling journey to justice. Ryan Londregan has finally arrived.”
On July 31, 2023, the two troopers pulled over Cobb, 33, on Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis for driving without taillights and later learned he was wanted for violating a felony domestic no-contact order. Cobb refused commands to exit the car.
With Seide partly inside the car while trying to unbuckle Cobb’s seatbelt, the car moved forward. Londregan then opened fire, hitting Cobb twice.
In her decision, Brasel said the troopers were mandated by state law to make an arrest given Cobb’s domestic no-contact order violation. She said it was objectively reasonable for Londregan to believe Seide was in immediate danger as the car moved forward on a busy highway, which would make his use of force reasonable.
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Donald Trump walked down the steps of the Boeing 757 that bears his name, walked across a rain-soaked tarmac and, after twice missing the handle, climbed into the passenger seat of a white garbage truck that also carried his name.
The former president, once a reality TV star known for his showmanship, wanted to draw attention to a remark made a day earlier by his successor, Democratic President Joe Biden, that suggested Trump’s supporters were garbage. Trump has used the remark as a cudgel against his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
”How do you like my garbage truck?” Trump said, wearing an orange and yellow safety vest over his white dress shirt and red tie. ”This is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden.”
Trump and other Republicans were facing pushback of their own for comments by a comedian at a weekend Trump rally who disparaged Puerto Rico as a ”floating island of garbage.” Trump then seized on a comment Biden made on a late Wednesday call that “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”
The president tried to clarify the comment afterward, saying he had intended to say Trump’s demonization of Latinos was unconscionable. But it was too late.
On Thursday, after arriving in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for an evening rally, Trump climbed into the garbage truck, carrying on a brief discussion with reporters while looking out the window — similar to what he did earlier this month during a photo opportunity he staged at a Pennsylvania McDonalds.
He again tried to distance himself from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, whose joke had set off the firestorm, but Trump did not denounce it. He also said he did not need to apologize to Puerto Ricans.
”I don’t know anything about the comedian,” Trump said. ”I don’t know who he is. I’ve never seen him. I heard he made a statement, but it was a statement that he made. He’s a comedian, what can I tell you. I know nothing about him.”
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