Imagine this: a drunken man walks into a restroom, and he really needs to go, so he wobbles over to the nearest urinal he can find. He leans in, unzips his pants when all of the sudden, the urinal says, “Hey there, how are you? You don’t happen to be drunk, I hope. Had a few drinks? Maybe a few too many?”
Anyone who would even imagine this kind of situation would probably see it as being awkward and very unusual. On the contrary, though, what this situation involves – talking urinals – is actually real. Most recently, talking urinals have been placed in several locations throughout Michigan, according to CBS News, for a very special reason: to reduce the number of drunk drivers on Michigan roads.
The urinals were created by Heathquest Technologies, Inc., a company which finds “success through innovation,” and a company which is familiar with using urinals in innovative ways. Their new product also has a very fitting name: Wizmark, the Interactive Urinal Communicator. As part of a Fourth of July educational/enforcement effort this year, these talking urinals have been placed in several areas in Michigan, including Detroit, Michigan’s most populous city.
Wizmarks have mainly been distributed to members of the Michigan Licensed Beverage Association (MLBA), the state’s first and only bar/tavern owners’ group, which was founded in 1939. The majority of the bars which now feature these talking urinals are actually owned by members of the MLBA.
“The MLBA’s purpose is to improve the business climate for its members by playing a pro-active role with state and local legislative processes,” says a description on the association’s website.
The way the talking urinals work goes a bit against the ‘talking’ aspect of the name, since it isn’t actually the urinal that is talking to its users, but the urinal deodorizer cake inside of it. This deodorizer cake is a small, motion-sensing device that, when activated, plays a pre-recorded message. The messages usually vary between different urinals, but the messages generally aim to grab the attention of the urinal’s occupant and urge them to find a safe way home. Some urinals will tell their user to call a friend or a cab; others will warn the user of a potential life in prison. The device itself is liquid-proof, and is activated whenever a user approaches it – in other words, one does not actually have to urinate on the device in order for it to be activated. To further help, the deodorizer cakes themselves have the phrases CALL A RIDE, GET HOME, and SAFE written into them.
To some, this system may seem ineffective. Realistically, it is always possible that drunken patrons will not listen to the talking urinals or heed their warnings at all. Some may simply curse at the urinal as if it’s just another human being and leave. There’s also the chance that the urinal may not even be used at all. Additionally, a voice coming from a urinal isn’t much different from that of a concerned bathroom attendant after all, as Dr. Donald Pharr, Professor of English, points out.
“I doubt that they would be any more effective than in the old days when a public restroom attendant might ask a person the same question and give the same advice. I think their long-term purpose is to grease the way for recorded commercial advertisements to take their place.”
However, the system could also potentially be effective. One of the reasons for this is the actual message the urinal plays, which has more structure, believability and genuineness than one might first think. The pre-recorded message will always start with a very friendly, conversational tone – for example, the urinal will ask how the user’s day was. This creates a sort of “gateway” between the urinal’s user and the urinal itself, allowing for the message to have a greater chance of affecting the user. Without a greeting like this, there’s a higher chance that the urinal’s user probably won’t pay attention to what he’s hearing, and the message will lose its purpose. Perhaps the greatest asset to the urinal’s message is the simple fact that the message isn’t delivered by a generic, commercial-like male voice, but a highly attractive female voice: something that normally wouldn’t be heard in a men’s restroom. Even still, however, the device’s target audience – drunken men – is seemingly more than likely to not listen to these warnings in the first place anyway, particularly because men are three times more likely than women to drive while drunk in the state of Michigan.
Regardless of how efficient or inefficient the idea of an advice-giving urinal might be, it is clear that Michigan desires to, at the very least, take a step in the right direction when it comes to drunk drivers. This might even convince other states to follow the same path. With any success, these talking urinals may just help change minds—and save lives.
