Tracy Bramble, an Iowa Department of Transportation (Iowa DOT) worker who was known for her witty highway signs passed away.
Tracy was part of Iowa DOT’s Roadside Chat program, a program that promoted traffic safety. Messages like “speeding won’t get you thru winter any faster”, “Don’t be a stinker use your blinker”, and “Not buckled? Seriously??” are products of several Iowa DOT staff members through the program.
The program began almost 11 years ago when the program was called “Message Mondays”. But that was just a part of Bramble’s 25-year career with the transportation agency.
Bramble was an information specialist and helped author the brief messages and wrote blog posts to provide more context to the safety messages and managed social media accounts.
One employee said of Bramble, “Tracy is the DOT.”
Every six months, Bramble and her colleague Willy Sorenson would come up with ideas for the messages to start the conversation about safety with motorists.
Those brainstorming sessions between the two would be revealed to a larger group who would either approve it or pick it apart. Their rating system consisted of a single, double, triple, or grand slam.
“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?” Andrea Henry, Bramble's boss said.
Bramble cared about her work, completing it in advance, and putting in the extra time when suggested to scrap a message to come up with something timely.
According to her husband Jeff Bramble, she felt a responsibility to inform people when there was a severe weather event.
According to Henry, everyone at the DOT knew Tracy.
“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.”
According to her obituary, she was 59 when she passed.
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Source: Des Moines Register
