Highway traffic sign advice

Had a pretty uneventful April Fools today. Fortunately the highway sign made sure it stayed that way. One of my PLU Digital Media Center colleagues JD had his last day working with us today. He left for possibly greener pastures doing mostly streaming media development at the University of Oregon. With this, my supervisor and I worked most of the latter afternoon re-setting passwords. Although a standard procedure when someone leaves it was much needed for some of these passwords that hadn't been reset for far too long now.

I took the freeway home tonight and noticed a slight slow down in traffic heading north near the 84th Street overpass. One of those large, readerboard-style traffic signs was on and had a message for everyone hurrying home after a long week at work:

Pay attention
Stay focused
Drive carefully

The irony was great since the mere fact the sign was on prompted everyone to slow down and take heed. I understand they want to get some use from these signs since I'm sure they cost a pretty penny but they could at least put something interesting up there. My vote would be for them to sell ad space for public transit or hybrid cars. Now there would be some irony. "You wouldn't be sitting in traffic if everyone took the bus." Of course, this might spawn a furvor of road rage incidents thus cancelling the whitty, yet meaningful, highway sign messages for good.

Comments (2) | To Top

4/4/2005 @ 7:30pm

Yes, I saw that sign the last time I was up there. Seems like the signs themselves cause less focus and attention on the road and less driving carefully. We used to get along just fine without signs treating us like idiots. Have I missed something like the IQ of drivers dropping 50% in the last 20 years?

by momquote

4/5/2005 @ 7:21am

...That would be just about right since my generation took the roads during that period. We all just want to play video games where we can lay down oil slicks and shoot missiles to smite our vehicle-bound enemies.

by KevinFreitas