Hello traffic jam! A Munich bus driver sends a smart message – Munich

Poetry is like protest: one or the other sometimes shows up unexpectedly and in unexpected places. On the street for example. The climate stickers take advantage of this; Traffic jams generate trouble and attention. But the congested traffic offers even more opportunities. A Munich resident recently wanted to use it to his advantage by placing a large screen behind the rear window of his SUV, on which he let LED statements flicker. However, it was of a rather rude nature. A few weeks ago he was taken out of circulation in Ludwigsfeld.

Elsewhere, the routes have long been used to exchange statements. In the USA there is a tradition of bumper sticker: The stickers, originally conceived as advertising messages for tourist attractions and stuck on the chrome bumpers of parked cars, have developed into a political expression of will. Since Dwight D. Eisenhower’s freestyle in 1953, their use in presidential election campaigns has been documented – which added an exciting dimension to the special form of opposition in rear-end collisions. No wonder a Colorado State University social psychologist has now scientifically proven that it is wise to keep an extra safe distance from cars with lots of stickers. It still has to be researched whether this also applies in this country, where the sticker culture with slogans like “gender is when the Saxon overturns the boat” is in the germination phase.

Against this background, a Munich bus driver is to be commended, who succeeded last week in combining form and message in an exemplary manner: in the display panel above the windshield. On a black background, yellow pixels usually announce matter-of-fact things: the bus number and the destination. Or: “Departure, don’t get in”. There is little room for poetry between “Messestadt Ost” and “Westfriedhof”. But the man left his vehicle on the way to the mission with the message “Ciao traffic jam!” rolling – and that on the day after a study showed that Munich was again the city with the most standstills in Germany in 2021. Perfect timing, smart message: it doesn’t get much better than that. Or maybe yes? If you like, you can sneer: The bus is a little late! Because this slogan should motivate commuters to change trains – in late summer 2020.

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