Most of us barely notice all those commercial signs stuck in the ground along the side of the roadways. They've just become part of the landscape in many places. But besides contributing to roadside clutter they can be a distracting safety hazard especially when placed at intersections where our attention should be focused on highway signs, stoplights, pedestrians, and other vehicles. Unfortunately sign purveyors know that is where cars are most likely to be slowing down or stopped and more likely to notice what they consider their important message.
Probably the ones seen the most are placed by housing developers or real estate agents. But there are plenty more for "affordable health insurance", "work from home opportunities", "drive a stock car", and "granite countertops", among other come-ons.
Most are placed illegally on Virginia Department of Transportation rights-of-way and the owner of each sign is subject to a fine of $100/day per sign.
Of course plenty of supporters of political candidates or propositions are subject to the same fines if they place signs on VDOT ROWs. But at least those are usually only seen for a limited time during campaign season.
Is it easy to tell whether a sign is actually on a public ROW? Not always. ROWs vary, often a lot. They're not simply the edge of a ditch or a certain distance from the edge of the roadway. They are a specific distance from the center of the roadway but that varies depending on the number of lanes and other factors.
Signs placed in a median strip or on a road sign or guard rail are always on VDOT ROWs and subject to removal and or fine.
So if you see a sign that you're sure is illegally placed can you legally remove it the same as if it were so much litter? That's a gray area. A person who threw a bottle out of their car onto the ROW has no expectation of ownership. A person who leaves their broken down car on the row certainly does. A sign left on the ROW falls somewhere in the middle. But I think of it as a lot closer to a piece of litter than a car.
A VDOT official told me that citizens should contact them to report a sign they think is placed illegally on a ROW although removal of such signs understandably usually gets a low priority.
The $100/day law is never enforced even though most all of these scofflaws leave their contact information on the signs. Losing their signs eventually is just a cost of doing business. If this method of advertising didn't work they wouldn't keep doing it.
The Town of Culpeper thankfully doesn't always turn a blind eye to such roadside clutter. Most roads in town are owned by the town. Developers who continually placed their signs on town road ROWs have been warned that they were running the risk of having their permits held up.
One city in Colorado allows signs in the ROWs Friday noon to Monday noon to allow for yard sales, open houses, etc. And no one wants to keep a kid from posting temporary lost puppy signs. But too many people are taking advantage of this low-cost, but unsightly and usually illegal form of advertising.
Real estate and development companies should know that when they place their signs up on VDOT ROWs, yes, customers may be helped to find their offerings, but their signs may also be advertising that they don't mind breaking the law, or care about cluttering the landscape or have concerns about safety hazards. Not an image I'd think they would want to project. I could find no mention of illegally posting signage in a public ROW in the State Real Estate Board regulations.
And VDOT needs to give a call to those granite countertop vendors, and others, who conveniently leave behind their phone numbers, and remind them of the $100/day fines. If that doesn't work I think one single prosecution would get the message across real quick that they should find another way to reach customers. Maybe the nice folks in the advertising department at the Culpeper Star Exponent have some ideas.
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