Governor Scott Walker’s got a joke for Wisconsin taxpayers. A bunch of actors in “Flinstones” cars walk into a roundabout, and…. Wait, never mind. That’s the punchline.
According to the Wisconsin Reporter, Walker’s Department of Transportation spent $30,000 in 2013 on a new instructional video for navigating traffic roundabouts. In making the $30,000 video, WisDOT opted for a throw back to a fictional Stone Age and have actors walk around wearing cardboard car cutouts while the narrator describes proper roundabout protocol. That’s right, a driver training video that uses the same technology as Fred Flintstone did for his commute to work on a dinosaur crane. It’s a farce you have to see to believe.
Beyond the mere fact that taxpayer dollars were spent on reenacting a ’60s cartoon, the video is redundant; there exists a roundabout safety video from 2008 on the WisDOT website. And the 2008 video even uses that newfangled invention… the automobile.
Seemingly, the willingness of Walker’s transportation agency to waste tens of thousands of dollars on an unnecessary video that features actors shuffling around in cardboard cards portends larger fiscal issues. As the report notes, “the roundabout video was released months before the state agency asked for $750 million in new fees and taxes in the next budget cycle.”
Published: Dec 18, 2014