News Stories  Billboard Messages Affect Your Driving  There's a
billboard up ahead, a roadside sign full of language and
imagery. You become emotionally distracted, and guess what
happens next?   Psychologist Michelle Chan devised an experiment
using a driving simulator in which participants drove through
one of three scenarios that exposed them to 20 billboards on the
course. Each billboard contained blocks of words that were
positive, negative or neutral in nature.  Subjects who viewed
the negative words decreased their speed when passing the signs
and tended to drift and veer from their lane. Conversely,
drivers viewing the words with positive connotations sped up
when passing the signs.  (A smart traffic cop would park his
motorcycle behind a "happy" billboard in order to catch
speeders).  Billboards vary according to location. Chan says,
"When you're driving in Las Vegas, you'll see a bunch of profane
billboards. There are also some really graphic anti-smoking
billboards around."  On, our extraordinary r