Coventry City Council has launched a new community messaging system called StreetTV, PublicTechnology.net reported today.

Large, colour LED screens will be attached to lampposts in three areas of the city including Holyhead Road, Jubilee Crescent and the Butts, and serve as electronic bulletin boards that will broadcast information and advertisements.

During major incidents, the council and its partners – the police and fire departments, for example – can broadcast important messages and information to citizens on the street. Major incidents hopefully will not occur every day with the introduction of the messaging system, so on a day to day basis, the signs will broadcast healthy living and crime awareness announcements, as well as traffic updates (more banal, but probably the most useful). And sporting event updates will be also be provided for those sports fans who couldn’t make to a pub or turn on a car radio.

The screens were provided free of charge from Streetbroadcast. The council has been granted 50 minutes of free airtime every hour; the other 10 minutes are reserved for advertising.

Examples of the message boards on the Streetbroadcast website look pretty snazzy. Hopefully they won’t cause more traffic slow downs or accidents by distracting drivers with flashy, moving ads.

Geoffrey Robinson, Labour MP of Coventry North West and chairman of the New Statesman magazine, expressed his concern over the potential dangers the message boards pose of distracting motorists.

“They would be worse than hand-held phones,” Robinson said.

The signs should definitely not be on motorways, Robinson said, but his overall feeling on the matter was: “We don’t need them in Coventry.”