How To Reach A Million People Tomorrow

How To Reach A Million People Tomorrow: Paint up a bunch of signs and hang them next to freeways. 13 or 14 of them hung next to five or six large freeways should just about do the trick.

Freeway signposting is a great alternative for people who'd like to make a political statement to a very large number of people without getting clubbed, tear-gassed or arrested.

Along with duct tape and bungee cords, you should bring along a hammer, nails and a couple of spring clamps: this is pretty much all you need to hang signs just about anywhere.

I put these up last week over or next to the 80, 280, 101, 85 and 99 in San Francisco, San Jose, Berkeley, Marin, Sonoma, Stockton and Sacramento.

With very few exceptions, each of these signs stayed up for at least 48 hours, easily visible to between 60 and 100 thousand people per day.

So long as a sign is placed within sight of freeway traffic, it'll get seen. A lot. If you're the least bit clever about how and where you place it, it'll stay up.

When a sign comes down, you put up another one.

Any place you can see while driving is a place you can put up a sign that'll be seen by other drivers.

Using cardboard, paint and an overhead projector, I can make dozens of these things for pennies apiece - just about any size - in just a few hours.

Bungee cords and duct tape are the quickest, easiest way to mount a sign to fencing. So long as the sign is mounted to the inside of the fencing, it's perfectly safe. And perfectly legible.

So long as it's political and not commercial speech, your sign is protected by the First Amendment. If a policeman or highway patrolman sees you putting one up, however, they'll probably ask you to take it down. I always comply with such requests. During the Bush administration I put up over four thousand signs. Police made me take down seven of them.

On my way back from the Bay Area I saw that more than half the signs I'd put up in LA (here and here) were still standing, so for this week, a million people a day is probably an understatement. Apart from gas, the total cost came to about fifteen dollars. If that.

And it's a hell of a lot of fun.

More information at Freewayblogger.com
(Attention California Occupiers: if you'd like me to make you some Really Large Signs for your encampment, free, contact me at freewayblogger-at-yahoo-dot-com)