“Don’t be a stinker use your blinker.”
“Speeding won’t get you thru winter any faster.”
“Not buckled? Seriously??”
These signs seen by Iowa motorists were favorites of their author, Tracey Bramble, an Iowa Department of Transportation employee who died May 18.
It’s to promote traffic safety, and the messages are the careful products of several Iowa Department of Transportation staff as part of the Roadside Chat program.
Bramble helped author countless messages alongside Willy Sorenson, who works in traffic and safety, since the start nearly 11 years ago when the program was known as "Message Mondays."
From the archives:Life-saving messages spark Iowa’s roadside quips
It was just one of Bramble’s many responsibilities in her nearly 25-year career with the Iowa DOT.
As an information specialist, Bramble helped brainstorm the brief messages, wrote accompanying blog posts to provide more insight about the safety message the department was making and managed social media accounts. That included posting content and engaging with commenters.
As one employee put it to Bramble’s boss, Andrea Henry:
“Tracey is the DOT.”
She was 59 when she passed from a brain aneurysm, according to her obituary.
Creating messages for Iowa motorists to start conversations
The message on a signboard that motorists see for a few seconds as they travel was likely the product of a several-hour brainstorming session between Sorenson and Bramble every six months.
Several of those meetings took place outside Henry’s office, who witnessed just how those sessions occur: an eruption of laughter to music and movie quotes playing from YouTube, only for the pair to dash over to Henry promising a great idea (Henry, the DOT's director of the outreach and development bureau, wasn’t always sold).
Eventually, their ideas would be revealed to a larger group ready to approve it or pick it apart. Their rating system? Either a single, double, triple or grand slam — a perfect reference for baseball fan Bramble.
“There's really a lot of science and that goes behind all of that, just how we craft it for readability, for understandability and entertainment value and then ultimately does it drive home that safety message and start those conversations?” Henry said.
One example of Bramble’s influence in the messages displayed on Iowa highways were references to the Will Ferrell movie “Elf” during the holidays to a “Hocus Pocus” reference one October, both Henry and Sorenson recalled.
She was an Iowa State University Cyclones fan, too, perfectly aligned with a team of Iowa DOT employees and fellow Cyclone fans eager to work in that cardinal-and-gold pride into the messages displayed across the state.
Despite being someone who completed her work well in advance, Bramble put in the extra time when Sorenson suggested they scrap a message in order to create something timely, like when Iowa women’s basketball made it to the final four in the NCAA tournament last year.
But her dedication wasn’t obvious to just her colleagues.
For any severe weather event, Bramble, the moment she woke up in the morning, would check her email, aware she had a responsibility to inform people checking social media for the latest updates on road closures, husband Jeff Bramble said.
“We live life to the fullest,” he said. “We had 23 years together. I'm grateful for every one of them. Thought I'd have 23 more, but no regrets in what we have.”
‘She wanted people to get to know the DOT’
Bramble had nicknames for people, or she’d use their middle name (Henry may have been her boss, but she wasn’t exempt from a scolding that invoked middle name use).
“Tracey never knew a stranger,” Henry said. “You met her within five minutes and you knew her and she knew you and that was so true. She just instantly clicked with people. She's just a bright light. It's really going to be a little darker in our world.”
Bramble interviewed co-workers for blog posts or worked with them for a social media post. Everybody at the Iowa DOT knew her, Henry said.
“She wanted people to get to know the DOT and all the wonderful humans behind the face of the DOT and also making sure that those faceless, nameless drivers on the road are seen as humans as well,” Henry said. “And that we're protecting one another.”
Bramble’s efforts to promote traffic safety — Iowans’ safety — continue. Messages that she and Sorenson brainstormed will still be displayed as usual across digital signboards on Iowa roadways through Labor Day, Sorenson said.
Paris Barraza is a trending and general assignment reporter at the Des Moines Register. Reach her atpbarraza@registermedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @ParisBarraza.
