'Tis the season for shopping and sing-alongs, holiday parties and heavy tipplers — and, on the highway, slick roads, lane closures and lost composure. The Vermont Agency of Transportation knows you want to be good — road rage tops its naughty list — so staffers are composing roadside messages that may crack you up and help avoid a crack-up. GOBBLE GOBBLE, EASE UP ON THE THROTTLE VISITING YOUR IN-LAWS? SLOW DOWN, BE LATE VTrans employee Rachel Noyes' medium is the median. She believes that a chuckle will produce a buckle and that a laugh can lighten the foot on the gas. Nominally, Noyes is the outreach manager in the agency's Operations and Safety Bureau, but her superpower, she said, is crafting short, witty messages "encouraging Vermonters to do the right thing." IF YOU HATE SPEEDING, RAISE YOUR RIGHT FOOT For the past several years, VTrans has deployed scores of portable electronic message boards across Vermont highways displaying jokes to encourage safe driving. Being Vermonters — which is to say, proudly unconventional — agency staffers kicked to the side of the road the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's finger-wagging messaging style: DRIVE SOBER FAST DRIVE COULD BE YOUR LAST DRIVE "We created a whole new media program called Drive Well Vermont, and it encourages Vermonters to take responsibility for their own safe driving behavior instead of us just telling drivers what they're doing wrong," Noyes explained. In 2021, Vermonters got their first glimpse of the highway revelry through the comic stylings of Noyes and later Ian Kilburn, her division chief. The first bonbon out of the box on Valentine's Day was this: VALENTINE, YOUR SEAT BELT WILL HOLD YOU A collective aw rippled through the Brave Little State. "We got a massive response, and I think it was because this was the first time for many people to see such messages on the side of the road," Noyes said. "And we just started building from that." Messages are typically composed of two parts — setup and punch line — and are brainstormed by division staff. Noyes generally develops a list of slogans and sends it to Kilburn, who reviews them with his team and adds his own. The final choices go to upper management to make sure the language hasn't crossed the line into oncoming blowback. 90 IS THE TEMPERATURE, NOT THE SPEED LIMIT VTrans has about 100 of…