Highway billboards to come down

Hundreds of billboards are set to disappear from the country's roads as part of ongoing efforts by the Transport Ministry to make driving in the Czech Republic safer, even if it means smaller profits for the ministry, according to its spokesman. It is thought that about 400 billboards will be pulled down next year and another 500 in 2012.

Advertising companies that make use of the billboards wouldn't comment, but citizens' groups are vocally backing the project.

Jakub Ptačinský, spokesman for the Transport Ministry, told The Prague Post that a number of contracts held by a major billboard owner will expire over the next two and half years.

"We do not want to renew these contracts. Therefore, a lot of billboards will be removed," Ptačinský said.

He added that some of the billboards on Czech roads are owned by smaller operators who hold contracts with an unlimited time span. However, Ptačinský said that "as far as we are concerned, there are ways for even these contracts to be canceled."

Ptačinský said this year's removals are part of a 10-year effort to transform the country's roads.

"It has been going on since 2001, and we have already removed 900 billboards on highways and some 3,000 on other main roads," he said.

A spokesperson for News Outdoor, the company thought to be one of the worst affected by the removals, declined to comment to The Prague Post. JCDecaux, a major international advertising firm that operates outdoor ads on Prague streets, told The Prague Post that its business would remain largely unaffected by the changes on the highways.

The Transport Ministry said it is removing the billboards primarily for safety reasons.

"If there is any way we can help decrease the number of deaths on the roads, it is almost our duty to do so," Ptačinský said. "Road safety is the priority. I think everyone would agree that no ad is worth a human life."

According to police statistics, 70 people died in crashes involving stationary objects in the first half of 2010. It is thought that as many as 10 percent of these could have involved billboards or traffic signs.

Experts say the precise impact of billboards on road safety cannot be determined. A 2003 paper by Brendan Wallace of Glasgow's Center for Applied Social Psychology said that while the precise impact of billboards on road safety could not be determined, the effect was "real."

"There is overwhelming evidence that, at least in some situations, signs and billboards can be a threat to road safety," Wallace said.

The Transport Ministry said improving the appearance of the landscape was another reason for the removal efforts.

"Of course, we do not want to be known as a country pasted all over with billboards," Ptačinský said.

The building authority, rather than the Transport Ministry, is the body that decides on the exact placement of the billboards.

Štěpán Fiala of the Nechceme billboardy u dálnic a silnic (We Don't Want Billboards on Highways and Roads) initiative, an online campaign against billboards, said he believed the situation outside the capital is "getting better."

"Hopefully, it will be even better in a few more years as the actions of the Transport Ministry suggest," Fiala said.

However, he added that the group's main concern was the number of billboards within Prague, which he described as being "out of control." In addition to safety concerns, the group argues that the Czech Republic looks like the "Wild East" in comparison to advertising-free roads in Germany and Austria.

They aren't the only citizen group concerned about the issue, though. Acta non verba is another Czech organization seeking to ban billboards, and recently filed a criminal complaint against the Transport Ministry officials who approved a specific billboard.

The billboard in question allegedly caused a fatal accident on the D5 highway when a driver swerved and hit the post head on in 2008.

"The officials do not seem to mind that the billboard they permitted caused the death of a person. The company that owns the billboard doesn't have enough decency to stop making money from it," Vojtěch Razima, head of Acta non verba, told the Czech News Agency Aug. 6.

"We should get rid of a vast majority of billboards within five years, although the Czech Road and Motorway Directorate will lose a lot of money from their rentals," Ptačinský said in response.

Since the complaint was filed, a court responded by ordering the removal of a billboard on R7, a road that connects Prague with Slaný, as it had reportedly caused several accidents in February this year.

- Filip Šenk contributed to this report.

Bill Lehane can be reached at
blehane@praguepost.com