It looks like World Wide Rush LLC and Sky Tag Inc., will get to blight the city of Los Angeles with huge billboards that hang from the side of really large buildings.
I think Judge Audrey B. Collins erred in allowing World Wide Rush to basically get their way when it comes to hanging HUGE billboards from the sides of Hotels that can be seen from Los Angeles freeways and that are visible from freeway off ramps and freeway interchanges. It is kind of freakish to think that when I am driving a car I have to actually avert my eyes from distractions that are designed to, distract me into looking.
Maybe Judge Collins assumed that the huge billboards will cause the drivers to look back up at the road from their text messaging and pay attention, sort of like, two wrongs, looking into one laps while text messaging, and looking into the skyline at huge billboard ads will cancel each other out and cause the driver to actually just look at the road directly ahead.
There are other issues to consider, that is for sure.
A hotel that is barely making it financially might find the revenue they receive from the billboard advertising to be the difference maker in being able to pay their California state and local taxes, oh the irony of that one.
If the judge is forcing the city of Los Angeles to comply to the whims of "free speech bill board entrepreneurs", can a driver who is distracted by the huge billboards and causes a severe accident then sue the city of Los Angeles as well?
Can the judge make a motion to deny all such lawsuits in advance? Or at least protect the city of Los Angeles from such lawsuits?
Will car insurance companies raise their rates to those who drive by these huge billboards, thereby once again making it JOE citizen the one who ultimately subsidizes these ads?
Or has the judge basically said that L.A. must allow huge, distracting billboards, and then allow citizens of L.A. to sue when those signs cause an accident, while also allowing insurance companies to raise their rates in these areas. Now that is one heck of a stimulus package.
Or should we call it a scrumulous package?
What if the ads are for fraud driven products? Is there a psychological ploy at work in which seeing something so ostentatiously presented must mean it is either ethical or truthful? Will politicians be on these huge billboards in the not too distant future?
