I-79 between Pittsburgh and Eire has a stretch where every few minutes you encounter large signs with black letters on a bright yellow background. They’re full of advice, mostly about wearing your seat belts (the best one was “Seat belts required, next million miles”), but also slogans like “Slow down and save lives”, “Stay alert”, etc. After a while it feels like they’re nagging you. Vicki and I spent some time coming up with suggestions for future signs:
STOP SLOUCHING, SIT UP STRAIGHT!
ARE YOU REALLY GOING OUT DRESSED LIKE THAT?
DON’T MAKE THAT FACE WHEN I’M TALKING TO YOU – I’M TELLING YOU THIS FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!
Ah, yes PA road signs. I take it you didn’t encounter “slow down, my (mommy|daddy) works here”? Those even get printed in “childlike” writing, complete with reversed letters.
I’ve seen those signs before, but not this time. I think NY uses them too.
Kelly Monteith had a skit based on a similar concept, I think (IIRC) dealing with the utter boredom of driving across Texas and the signs they have up…
SLEEPY?
“Well I wasn’t but… now that you mention it… I can’t stay awake anymore! AAhhh” (screeching noises and crashes).
(police cop voice): Dang fool… didn’t he see the sign back there?
What he suggests are signs like “WARNING: SNIPER AREA!” or “WEREWOLF CROSSING” (wuh? I thought those were mythical… oh and it’s a full moon!).
Around here, they have huge signs saying “”Police are now targeting… [blank]”, and the police slot in “SPEEDING” “DRUNK DRIVING” “SEATBELTS”, etc.
We end up brainstorming what the police might really be targeting this week.
“Police are now targeting… DRIVING WHILE BLACK”
“Police are now targeting…HIP HOP”
“Police are now targeting… BEING MENTALLY ILL ON A PUBLIC STREET”
“Police are now targeting… BACKPACKERS WHO LOOK A LITTLE FOREIGN”
“Police are now targeting… PEOPLE WHO WEAR THEIR CAPS BACKWARDS. IT’S A FASHION CRIME, FOLKS”
It’s the “SPEEDING SKIERS” one that tickles me. As long as you don’t have skis strapped to the roof you’re allowed to do 150 k on the Hume Highway?
I kinda like the simplicitity of “Who taught you how to drive?”
Having signs like “Werewolf Crossing” or “Cattle Abduction Zone” would be fun. I’d be more inclined to stay awake with signs like that.
I like the I-95 for tackiness. In Virginia the signs are mostly just ye olde standard billboards. As you go through North Carolina they become more elaborate, more garish, and more frequent, to the point that you almost don’t know where one leaves off and the other begins. I’m surprised there aren’t more deaths attributed to the tacky billboards for South of the Border.
What’s more effective than those stupid signs are the crosses that line some highways (like old PA 322) that signify a death in a car accident in that area.
Pittsburgh and Eire, eh? That’s a long highway from Pennsylvania to the British Isles…
On the road from Auckland (largest city in NZ, population somewhere over a million) to Tauranga a couple of years back there were a series of billboards with captions like “Just Another Fatal Accident”, “Just Another Failure of Attention”, “Just Another Faulty Automobile”, “Just Another Floored Accelerator” – all intended to raise driver awareness.
The acronym JAFA is usually taken to stand for “Just Another Fucking Aucklander”.