My brother sent me the photo of the “thickly settled” sign you see above, and to be completely honest: I had no clue what the hell it meant. But it’s only one of many traffic signs that fail at their primary function of being easily understood by even the dumbest citizen. Let’s talk about the others.
Do you know what this sign means?
What about this?
Well, that first one means “end of all restrictions,” so let’s say you are driving down a country road (which has a speed limit of 100 km/h) in Germany (yes, I made this hard by choosing German road signs), and you come to a town. The speed limit will drop to 50 km/h. When you leave the town, you might see that three-diagonal-line sign, which means you can now go 100 again. No more town restriction. That second sign is used as an “orientation point” for self-driving cars under development so that those cars know exactly where thy are.
Oh, and Thickly Settled? That just means there’s a high population density of folks around the road ahead.
Did you know this? What other road signs have you scratching your head?
In rural Kentucky there are signs on the interstate for Bat Cave. First of all, I thought it was just outside of Gotham. Second, I would have thought that Bruce Wayne would have enough pull with the local authorities to keep his underground lair secret.
Somewhere on the interstate in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains (near WV?) there is an “Entering Technology Corridor” sign.
No idea what it means, the area is desolate as far as I can tell and in the middle of the hills.
I’ve got to imagine there’s somewhere between 100-200 “tech valleys” in the U.S. right now, all regions that are more than likely not significant in the tech sector, but all of which very badly want people driving through to think that they are.
It’s a stretch of highway with like 1 exit in 20 miles. And cell reception sucks which is kind of ironic I guess. Just odd and maybe a little sad.
Oh it’s definitely sad.
That means that Billy Bob got a computer installed in his trailer.
It means they finally installed cellphone towers.
Municipalities are notorious for throwing up some signage, kicking out some mid-tier marketing campaign, and declaring a certain area an economic specialty hoping it’ll generate jobs, taxes, and/or votes. Half of my town has been declared a “Medical District” for over a decade and it hasn’t really meant anything.
Were there telephone poles? Technology.
Another sign that is odd is the “Leaving Safety Corridor” signs.
I wonder if I’ll be entering a Mad Max type situation…
http://tinyurl.com/bddkxxde
I’m guessing that “safety corridor” is one of those “fines doubled” zones? But yeah, it’s definitely more ambiguous when written as “safety corridor”.
One of my favorites is not a road sign, but an organization my son was affiliated with years ago. AIM for the Handicapped. The logo features a BULLSEYE!
http://tinyurl.com/4zwz4696
Out on 170 west of Big Bend there are both “Falling Rocks” and “Fallen Rocks” signs, and I’ve always wondered at the implication.
Some poor sap has to change those signs all the time. When rocks are actively falling, they put up “Falling Rocks” when the rocks stop falling, it is switched to “Fallen Rocks”.
Job security until they run out of rocks
There is a sign on 440 in Raleigh that says, “Exit 1/5 mile”. Never seen that fraction on a road sign before.
So….. Maybe 1,000 ft sounds too much like a metric measurement and confused people?
Hahaha I’m from Perth Western Australia, it’s great to see our freeway exit sign in the header. It looks confusing there but it does make a bit more sense in situ
“Resume safe speed” Surely that leaves it up to every driver to decide what speed they feel is safe, regardless of any other speed limit. This is in the US in a state that has speed limits on every road.
So, what do you do if you’re driving a Corvair?
DON’T DRIVE
Are you supposed to drive flat out before you get to that sign?
I grew up just outside Tallahassee, Florida. Dad has land and his shop in Gadsden county. It wasn’t often, but sometimes we’d go from Dad’s to Cairo, Ga for something or other.
Along the way, before a flashing caution light at an intersection just outside of Reno, Ga, there was a sign that said “Warning Congested Area Ahead”
As I mentioned, it was a flashing caution light at an intersection. Exact opposite of congested
When ever I see a thickly settled sign I begin to have thoughts about going back to the gym…….
A few years ago, a co-worker and I decided to drive from VT to MI instead of flying. It was the winter. It was snowing – a lot. It was a bad decision.
Our route brought us through Canada, and whatever road that was had the standard blue services off this exit sign at every exit. I was looking for gas, and I saw that the blue sign for the next exit indicated there would be fuel. Pulled off and went miles in each direction – no gas station. Same thing at the next one.
At the third one, the sign was different. It had the fuel symbol and then beneath it had a little sign for the gas station that was off the exit.
Canada put up signs on every exit just in case someone opens a restaurant, hotel or gas station near the highway exit. There was nothing available at 90% of the exits. They could have just saved the money.
In PA when going up or down I-81 there’s usually small-ish blue signs listing hotels and fast food places just off each exit. I like when they’re blank with marks where old logos used to be, or explicitly written out “NO SERVICES THIS EXIT”
My favorite local sign in Somerville MA. https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSAjl0txzHxyVaxROvY-lb92UxPsEYBGPYS9SVK2sbXhw&s
Germany has three signage that determine the right of way at the intersections. The most common signage is “Vorfahrtstraße” (the street with the right of the way regardless). The other is simply “Vorfahrt” (you have the right of the way), but the third one is “Einmündung” (at the intersection or cross-road, the driver on your right has priority). The third one led to so much confusions and irritations.
Until 2021, the drivers travelling to the most rural of rural areas in northwestern Austria would see the signage saying “Fucking“. That was name of a tiny village close north of Salzburg. I lucked out in visiting Fucking and taking photos of the signage before the name change to Fugging.
Not a confusing sign, but in the 80’s my friend’s neighborhood changed the Children at play to Children eat play doh. Only for extra letters and what a difference.
I’ve always liked “hidden entrance”
It makes me think of the Narnia wardrobe.
“Hidden Driveway” makes me imagine a sections of bushes sliding over to reveal a secret access ramp below ground
In Indonesia, when I was little, I saw a sign that roughly translate to “You are entering area with traffic rules” at intercity road. What perplexed me was, after about 1 km there was same sign cross on it . Does that mean i don’t have to follow traffic rules beyond that sign?
In the “Duh” category, a sign on a nearby road: “Hill Blocks View.” Gets a laugh every time.
When I first arrived for work in Frankfurt, Germany 1994, I was struggling to find my hotel in my rental car. None of the road signs show direction, only the town you are going to. I couldn’t seem to find any street signs except for “Einbahnstrasse”, I couldn’t find it on my maps. I figured it out when I turned down a street and 5 lanes of cars and a trolley car came rushing at me. Einbahnstrasse is “One-way Street”, of course.
Fantastic anecdote!
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nowhere_Else_sign_2.jpg
Best local one I can find
As a Seattle resident there’s one common road sign I see that seems to confuse everyone.
The sign face is a diamond shape with a black legend and border on a yellow background.
It depicts two parallel lines that suddenly converge into the same parallel lines closer together.
What does it mean?
Judging by how I see other drivers navigate its cryptic markings I can hazard a few guesses.
Race lane only?
Most drivers seem to avoid being in the lane depicted by the converging line at all costs, even if that means backing up traffic at an intersection.
But a select few use it to blatantly speed past everyone in the other lane.
Must need a special permit or something to travel in that converging lane.
Social shame lane?
Heaven forbid you find yourself in the lane depicted by the converging line on the sign by accident (or without the racing lane permit?).
Suddenly everyone in the once parallel lane will get bumper to bumper and join together to publicly scold you by not letting you over. Like you’re a fool for not getting in line behind them a mile back to help them block traffic.
It’s very confusing.
What does that sign mean?!
In the small town of Senoia, GA I was driving down very secluded country roads to find a relative’s house.
There was a small bridge over a creek that looked normal enough. But right at the entrance to the bridge there was a regular, yellow diamond sign that had no graphic of any kind and a single word:
DANGER
What am I supposed to do with that info? Seriously bizarre.
Visiting someone in hospital recently really pissed me off. Every single piece of gear, and there was a lot, was beeping or alarming in some way. Constant loud announcements over the PA. The place sounded like a carnival midway. Hardly a place of convalescence.
Stepping outside there was the classic road sign “Quiet Hospital”. :ROLL:
Did they have the machine that goes ping?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQPIdZvoV4g
I was moving back to the Great State of Alabama early 90s and entering the state from Mississippi there was a lot of road construction. The sign said, “trucks must use the right lane”. Then there was a “right lane closed ahead” sign. That alternated for about a mile…then sure enough, the right lane was closed. Then it was missing. Followed with a sign that reiterated that trucks must use the right lane that wasn’t there.
SLOW CHILDREN PRESENT
When we would see those someone would invariably say “well maybe you should just keep them inside.”
It was a different time.
Thickly Settled, and they have Slow Children?