Green Lantern to Light the Way for Ohio’s Snowplows, Sort Of

The Ohio Department of Transportation names Green Lantern as the inspiration behind a plan to put green lights on the state’s snowplows.

There have already been 63 crashes involving a snowplow in the state of Ohio this year. The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) compared that number to the 57 such crashes from all of the 2009-2010 winter and decided to take super-heroic action. ODOT has budgeted to put blinking green LED lights on the state’s snowplows, and is announcing that Green Lantern is going to save Ohioans from snowplow accidents.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer-affiliated Cleveland.com, quoting an ODOT press release, reports, “taking a cue from the comic book superhero who uses green light to protect the people of Earth, the Ohio Department of Transportation is hoping a Green Lantern will protect its snowplows from a dangerous spike in crashes this season.” The article goes on to malign the current yellow lights affixed to the plows, even noting, “the yellow lantern is a symbol of evil wielded by the renegade Green Lantern, Sinestro, in DC’s Green Lantern comics.”

I lived my entire life in the state until last month, and so feel a proprietary permission to make fun of this analogy. Really, Ohio? Green wasn’t just the most visible color not already claimed by police cars, fire trucks, or ambulances?

The press release, complete with super-exciting pictures of this brilliantly marketed minor change, is available here.

Good grief.

Source: Cleveland.com, via Comic Book Resources