click it or ticket
On recent drives through surrounding states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts, we have taken note of local customs of the road. For example, New Jersey gas stations are not allowed to offer self-service on any of its pumps, which amounts to always paying more to wait longer for someone else to pump your gas and nothing more. Apparently the window squeegee is still self-service. Pennsylvania has installed EZ Pass (our electronic toll collection system) on some but not all of its major toll roads and yet hasn't staffed the toll plazas that require exact change. So EZ Pass card holders are never quite sure when they will need not just real money but exact change to proceed to the next stretch of road beyond the tollbooth gate.
But most recently I've been taken with the new advertising campaigns to remind drivers that not wearing their seatbelts is now punishable by law. All of our surrounding states have adopted the nerdy "Click It or Ticket" slogan that I presume several other states across the country are using.
Is it me or does that slogan remind you of something your junior high school schoolmarm would have come up with to instill some ridiculous classroom dictum? I can hear Sister Helen Louise, pointer in hand, repeating a slogan like that completely unaware of the variety of naively naughty variations pre-adolescent boys would come up with when she was out of the room. I can here the classroom clowns and bullies mimicking here voice and hissing maniacally "Pick at your dick-et" or "Lick it or stick it" --phrases that meant more in our heads than in any reality.
When I see "Click it or Ticket" along the highways, I can only imagine some bookish civil servant or some Nancy "Just-Say-No" Reagan-ish socialite springing into action behind the campaign with the same fervor he or she gave to tree plantings and ribbon cuttings, completely oblivious to the rolling eyes or middle fingers of the drivers passing by in the left lane.
Anyway, on these driving trips, each time I have crossed the border back into New York State, I have been proud to be a New Yorker. Big yellow and black LED signs that read "Buckle Up New York. It's the Law" reminded me that New Yorkers can be fairly direct and no-nonsense when they want to be. I can hear someone in Albany or on Chambers Street shaming the "Click It" slogan right out of the room and saying, "Jus' tell 'em it's 'da fuckin' law, and 'dat they're gonna' get a fuckin' ticket if they don't follow it."
Works for me.
But most recently I've been taken with the new advertising campaigns to remind drivers that not wearing their seatbelts is now punishable by law. All of our surrounding states have adopted the nerdy "Click It or Ticket" slogan that I presume several other states across the country are using.
Is it me or does that slogan remind you of something your junior high school schoolmarm would have come up with to instill some ridiculous classroom dictum? I can hear Sister Helen Louise, pointer in hand, repeating a slogan like that completely unaware of the variety of naively naughty variations pre-adolescent boys would come up with when she was out of the room. I can here the classroom clowns and bullies mimicking here voice and hissing maniacally "Pick at your dick-et" or "Lick it or stick it" --phrases that meant more in our heads than in any reality.
When I see "Click it or Ticket" along the highways, I can only imagine some bookish civil servant or some Nancy "Just-Say-No" Reagan-ish socialite springing into action behind the campaign with the same fervor he or she gave to tree plantings and ribbon cuttings, completely oblivious to the rolling eyes or middle fingers of the drivers passing by in the left lane.
Anyway, on these driving trips, each time I have crossed the border back into New York State, I have been proud to be a New Yorker. Big yellow and black LED signs that read "Buckle Up New York. It's the Law" reminded me that New Yorkers can be fairly direct and no-nonsense when they want to be. I can hear someone in Albany or on Chambers Street shaming the "Click It" slogan right out of the room and saying, "Jus' tell 'em it's 'da fuckin' law, and 'dat they're gonna' get a fuckin' ticket if they don't follow it."
Works for me.
3 Comments:
It's a stupid slogan. Doesn't work without some little icon of a safety belt, either. Jackassery.
My favorite of these sorts of things, truly favorite, is "Don't Mess with Texas." It's been hijacked by rednecks who'd like to go back to the great days of the Republic of Texas, but it originally started as part of a no littering campaign.
A similar campaign in NYC about 15 years ago was a subway poster with a great big picture of rats eating garbage from a sewer grate on the street. The caption read: "Maybe New York wouldn't have so many rats, if it didn't have so many pigs." Those were the days. Try putting that quote next to a picture of Miss Turnstile.
Funny one!
Oregon also doesn't allow you to pump your own gas. We were constantly forgetting and forever being waved back into the car.
I'm ashamed we also have the click it or ticket thing.
We also get roadblocks now and again checking for car seats and seatbelts! (As the drunk driver zooms by.....)
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