You Know You're A Roadgeek If...

[msubulldog]

. . . you can spell funky words with Wisconsin county highway route marker sign assemblies.

Mike

Or you can spell common words with Missouri's lettered highway signs.

[DaBigE]

. . . you can spell funky words with Wisconsin county highway route marker sign assemblies.

Mike

Not exactly a word, but...there are a few intersections of CTH X and CTH XX, however the respective counties were smart enough/lazy enough not to post both highways on the same directional assembly.

[Big John]

. . . you can spell funky words with Wisconsin county highway route marker sign assemblies.

Mike

Not exactly a word, but...there are a few intersections of CTH X and CTH XX, however the respective counties were smart enough/lazy enough not to post both highways on the same directional assembly.

Brown County (Allouez) has both on the same assembly: http://goo.gl/maps/GT7Ds

[Molandfreak]

I wish they would make it easier for us and just designate a CTH XXX.

[Big John]

I wish they would make it easier for us and just designate a CTH XXX.

Most counties have only 1-2 if any triple-lettered county highways.  But Fond du Lac County uses them more extensively, but they only go up to CTH VVV.

And they have a triple K, but is not signed the regular way for obvious reasons.  All it has is a street blade at WI 26 saying "TRIPLE KAY"

[Molandfreak]

And they have a triple K, but is not signed the regular way for obvious reasons.  All it has is a street blade at WI 26 saying "TRIPLE KAY"

Mind. Blown.

[DaBigE]

. . . you can spell funky words with Wisconsin county highway route marker sign assemblies.

Mike

Not exactly a word, but...there are a few intersections of CTH X and CTH XX, however the respective counties were smart enough/lazy enough not to post both highways on the same directional assembly.

Brown County (Allouez) has both on the same assembly: http://goo.gl/maps/GT7Ds

I sit corrected. My map search only returned two intersections of X and XX, neither of which was that one.

I wish they would make it easier for us and just designate a CTH XXX.

Most counties have only 1-2 if any triple-lettered county highways.  But Fond du Lac County uses them more extensively, but they only go up to CTH VVV.

And they have a triple K, but is not signed the regular way for obvious reasons.  All it has is a street blade at WI 26 saying "TRIPLE KAY"

How the hell did that one slip by? Or even still remain? Obviously the committee(s) didn't use the same filter the DMV uses for personalized license plates.
I see Google Maps labels it both ways: CTH Triple Kay

[NE2]

It might have been CTH KKK at one time, but it's now a town road: http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/travel/maps/docs/counties/fonddulac.pdf (east off STH 26 just south of Rosendale)

[Brandon]

I wish they would make it easier for us and just designate a CTH XXX.

Most counties have only 1-2 if any triple-lettered county highways.  But Fond du Lac County uses them more extensively, but they only go up to CTH VVV.

And they have a triple K, but is not signed the regular way for obvious reasons.  All it has is a street blade at WI 26 saying "TRIPLE KAY"

Well, that's the inning then, isn't it?  (3 Ks or strikeouts)

[Grzrd]

You read about the tragic death of a Hungarian wingsuit competitor



and feel compelled to check out the switchbacks on the road below the jumper.

[PColumbus73]

You know you're a roadgeek when-

You make traffic lights out of LEGOs (the rectangular piece for the back and red, yellow, and green squares, with blue for turn signals!)

As a kid you used Mega Bloks (the big ones) as traffic lights

You read the road atlas or the MUTCD when you're in the bathroom

When playing SimCity, you have numbered freeways complete with exit lists

You redesign road signs on video games (like GTA San Andreas)

You buy GTA San Andreas SPECIFICALLY because you want to drive between different cities.

[Big John]

^^ I had a simpler set of legos.  The back of a 4x2 piece resembled a 3-section traffic signal and the back of a 2x2 piece resembled a 1-section traffic signal, so i made signals using combinations of both.  Had to improvise the colors as the blocks were not the right colors.

[yakra]

You read the road atlas or the MUTCD when you're in the bathroom

I DO NOT DO ANYTHING WITH THE MUTCD IN THE BATHROOM.

[DaBigE]

You know you're a roadgeek when-

You make traffic lights out of LEGOs (the rectangular piece for the back and red, yellow, and green squares, with blue for turn signals!)

I when I was little, I used to make them that way...now I've upgraded to this:

[Michael]

You read the road atlas or the MUTCD when you're in the bathroom

I actually have a map folded to show a section of it sitting on a box so I can look at it handsfree!  When I get bored with one section, I refold it to show a different section.  I have another map sitting under it so I can switch between them.



One that happened to me earlier was when I was taking a nap, my dream started with my mom driving (with no hands on the steering wheel) westbound on Erie Blvd in Syracuse at about 55 MPH past the Niagara Mohawk building then running a red light.  It was around 9:00 PM.  In my dream, the western half of Erie Blvd was a full boulevard instead of a four-lane street.  Just before running the light, my mom slammed on the brakes, but ended up running a second light.  She was able to stop for a third light.  I remember that the lights had three yellow signal heads on span wires.  After realizing my mom was going to run the second red light, I remember thinking that a strobe in the red lights might help them stand out from car taillights.  Then I remembered that the MUTCD now prohibits strobes in red lights.  After that, I thought about taking road pictures with my camera, and then I woke up.

[Michael]

Here's yet another sign I'm a roadgeek.  While watching Youtube videos, this thumbnail came up in the Related Videos section:


As soon as I saw it, I instantly knew where it was.  Here's a larger picture and here's a Street View link.

[Takumi]

...when you hear ITR you think "Indiana Toll Road" instead of "Integra Type R".

Then again, I'm a roadgeek and the latter ALWAYS comes to mind first when I see that acronym.

[The High Plains Traveler]

As referenced in a recent road trip report... You know you're a roadgeek when you pass up a perfectly good bypass for U.S. 83 in Laredo, Texas and drag your travel trailer through city traffic just so you can say you've been at both ends of I-35.

[pianocello]

Here's yet another sign I'm a roadgeek.  While watching Youtube videos, this thumbnail came up in the Related Videos section:


As soon as I saw it, I instantly knew where it was.  Here's a larger picture and here's a Street View link.

You know you're a roadgeek if before clicking on the larger image you think of three different places in your hometown that this could happen: here, here, and here.

[vtk]

...when you hear ITR you think "Indiana Toll Road" instead of "Integra Type R".

I think both of those are quite jargony.  I'm pretty sure the Integra is some model of import car, but beyond that I'm just guessing. I imagine most people don't talk about that specific variation enough to need to abbreviate it.

[formulanone]

On specific Honda boards, other Japanese car forums, or racing game forums, you'd see ITR or CTR (C for Civic) a lot. But that's about it...it probably wouldn't translate too well on a discussion of muscle cars or a Corvette discussion board, just as saying LS1 or 427 over there.

Likewise, an M1, M3, or M5 would mean either a Michigan state highway near Detroit (although I think hyphenation is proper) or a motorway in Great Britain on this forum. On an automotive-related board, it almost always defines a BMW Motorsport-tuned vehicle.

So, there's not that much blurring of the two on this board. Naturally, an acronym or code comprised of just a few alphanumeric characters is going to have occasional overlap in different topics of discussions. It's less likely AASHTO or MUTCD are going to, however.

[agentsteel53]

Likewise, an M1, M3, or M5 would mean either a Michigan state highway near Detroit (although I think hyphenation is proper) or a motorway in Great Britain on this forum. On an automotive-related board, it almost always defines a BMW Motorsport-tuned vehicle.

I've noticed that a lot of BMW enthusiasts use solely the internal designation.  E39, etc. 

[elsmere241]

Your walls are covered with maps from states youve never been to.

My wife got a laundry tub to throw all my maps in because there wasn't a big enough box.

[elsmere241]

The first thing your father-in-law suggests when you come into town is a day-long roadtrip.

While on one of those trips, you stop at a welcome center.  Your father-in-law picks up a state map while you're in the bathroom and you pick one up while he's in the bathroom.

You order state and province maps online while bored at work.

You see different atlases' different mapping styles as different languages, and have to see how each one expresses things.

You recognize the generic-looking neighborhood on the cover of Rand McNally's city street maps as belonging in a suburb northwest of Minneapolis (hint: US 52 and 218 cut through it).

You have Blue Highways in more than one language.

You use Google StreetView to explore neighborhoods you used to live in, to see what has/hasn't changed.

You envision street signs having the street's grid position as well as its name, a la Salt Lake City (e.g. "Baltimore Avenue / 200 South").  (And my grandparents' street used to be signed "Fifth East / 500 East" instead of simply "500 E".)

You know why street ROWs in downtown Salt Lake are specifically 132 feet wide (two surveying chains -  the blocks are ten chains by ten chains)

You once spent an entire Thanksgiving weekend laying out a dream city on paper.

You pursued civil engineering in college because knowing what was on the maps wasn't good enough for you - you wanted to do something about them.  (Eventually I switched to Geography/Planning and later got a GIS certificate.  For seven years on this job I did maintain the county's centerline file in ArcGIS and that was fun enough.)

You marked your birthday on the calendar with a road shield.

(More of a geography geek): You spend your lunch hour at work trying to put together a dream HSR network.

[agentsteel53]

sometimes if I am not looking for a specific address when I open up Google Maps, I pan to my destination as opposed to entering it.  my default zoom level is "a bit more than San Diego County", so it took me a while but I managed to find Mexico City today, by following MX-15.