RV Friendly Road Signs Under Attack

[Dave&JanPotter]

As many of you know, the RV industry has been behind an effort to make road signs more informative to RVers. To date 15 states have adopted regulations that allow the logo RV to show up on official highway signs for businesses that are RV friendly and have parking lots that can handle RVs. This was done under an interim rule promulgated by the FHWA which controls this sort of stuff. These signs can be a great help to all RVers as we travel, especially if you pull a toad, to keep from getting trapped in a business parking lot. The goal is that all states to adopt rules allowing this signage. I have been following this issue as WA adopted the rule recently and we've seen the signs begin to show up. This commendable effort by the RV industry is about to be derailed as the FHWA adopts a final rule, which the states would then likely follow, which limits the size of the logo and limits a business to only one logo per sign. Under this rule then a 24 hour service station that can handle RVs would have to choose between a "diesel", "open 24 hour" or "RV" logo and you can guess which one they'd choose. Businesses who have previously paid to have the larger logo placed on the signage as per the interim rule would have to pay again to have the signage changed. This will likely have a chilling effect on the universal adoption of this helpful signage to the detriment of all RVers. FMCA has sent out a member alert and provided directions on how the RVing public can influence the process by commenting to the FHWA on their proposed rulemaking. I urge all of you, whether members of FMCA or not, whether your state has adopted the interim rule or not, to go to the first link below and provide your comments to the FHWA. You can also go to the second link to view sample comments provided by FMCA which can be copied/modified and pasted into the comment form at the first link. The third link explains the changes in more detail. Thanks in advance for your support.

Link to FHWA rulemaking comment form:, Docket Number FHWA–2007–28977-0001
http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/c ... 64803815f0

Link to FMCA Sample Comments;
http://www.fmca.com/motorhomerights/rvf ... mments.asp

Link to Explanation of changes
http://www.fmca.com/motorhomerights/upd ... posed_rule