You know you're a roadgeek when...

[elsmere241]

I thought of internal road networks for houses and parks from time to time when I was younger.  Once I took a couple of tomato stakes and put up street signs 1) where our driveway met the road (calling the driveway "Reeves Court" - our street was Reeves Road), and 2) where the front walk met the driveway.

[jas]

When family members call you for directions instead of using Mapquest or a GPS, knowing you'll give them the best route to their destination.

[Duke87]

I thought of internal road networks for houses and parks from time to time when I was younger.  Once I took a couple of tomato stakes and put up street signs 1) where our driveway met the road (calling the driveway "Reeves Court" - our street was Reeves Road), and 2) where the front walk met the driveway.

I did this in my front and back yard. I still remember the layout, though I only remember some of the names (I have a map in a notebook somewhere that would have them, but I'm not attempting to dig it up now). I can at least say offhand that my driveway was Force Field Road West.  
Never attempted to make signs, though!

As for making networks on a smaller scale, yes, I did that in the sandbox - and pissed all the other kids off doing so because I would insist on taking up the whole sandbox with my roads and yell at them if they disturbed any of them.
I also made roads out of Brio. Yes, it's a train toy, but flip the pieces over and the flat backs work oh so nicely to run matchbox cars along (for curves and slopes that have "track" on both sides, I'd just tolerate the grooves).

[Eth]

I thought of internal road networks for houses and parks from time to time when I was younger.  Once I took a couple of tomato stakes and put up street signs 1) where our driveway met the road (calling the driveway "Reeves Court" - our street was Reeves Road), and 2) where the front walk met the driveway.

Yep, I've done this too, though I never got around to posting signs.  Back in elementary school, I designated the main city street outside my neighborhood as I-18 (since it was an east-west street and I lived between I-20 and I-16) and my goal was always to get to I-18 every morning when I walked to the bus stop.  The route there from my house (about a quarter-mile walk) was undergoing a steady upgrade to freeway status as the years passed and I think I eventually dubbed it I-318.  Everything was imagined to be on roughly a 20:1 scale.

[ctsignguy]

One other roadgeek story from my misbegotten youth......like many kids my age back in the mid-60s, we would take our Tonka trucks and Matchbox/Tootsietoy cars (this was before Hot Wheels in 1968-69), and play road construction....my brother and two of my cousins...

One day, we were outside using our hands to move dirt around to make 'roads' and one of us started yelling "THE TREES HAVE TO GO....THE ROAD IS COMING THROUGH...."
Next sound was my aunt hollering out her window "WILL YOU BOYS GET OUT OF MY TOMATO PLANTS AND GO PLAY ELSEWHERE?!?!?"

Ahh, memories!

[US71]

When family members call you for directions instead of using Mapquest or a GP, knowing you'll give them the best route to their destination.

I tried that once. I was giving my dad directions to NW Arkansas from Missouri.  But since MY directions didn't match MapQuest, he thought I was wrong. So he followed MapQuest... and got lost. 

[jas]

When family members call you for directions instead of using Mapquest or a GP, knowing you'll give them the best route to their destination.

I tried that once. I was giving my dad directions to NW Arkansas from Missouri.  But since MY directions didn't match MapQuest, he thought I was wrong. So he followed MapQuest... and got lost.  

I just did the same for a co-worker.  I explained the best way to get from Toms River, NJ to Morrisville, PA.  He was amazed at how time he saved by not using Mapquest or a GPS.

Just to further the point of knowing you are a roadgeek, for 14 years of my professional career, I performed fieldwork throughout NJ, PA, NY, DE, MD and CT.  Many times after I completed a job, I'd take alternate routes that I'd never been on to get home, just for the experience, as well as a precaution for the next time I may have to go to that area.  I love traveling to places I've never seen, and letting my sense of direction take over.

[roadfro]

Also, when I was really little, i designed roads in the sandbox with overpasses, mountains, intersections, etc. for matchbox cars.

Guilty. I had a network of dirt roads going all over our backyard.

I drew freeways and such on reams of paper my mom would bring home from work.

I also "assigned" a street name and (some highway numbers) to every walking path and sidewalk in our nearby city park. Never put any chalk or anything to it, cause I knew it wouldn't last, but it was fun to ride the bike and pretend.

I played with Hot Wheels cars and Matchbox road sets, but had to change the signs that came with them because they were not drawn accurately...


Perhaps the most telling...By age 4, my mom tells me I had memorized the text of every BGS on US 95 in Las Vegas (from Exits 72 to 85, as that's what we drove most frequently). Used to read them off in the car before the sign was visible. I'm sure it drove my mom nuts...but now she asks me for directions all the time, even though I no longer live in Vegas.

[ctsignguy]

oh yeah, i remember those Matchbox "Build-a-Roads....they had signs as part of the kits (and decals of not too good quality...they usually broke as you were applying them to the signs)

Oh the signs?  I would paint the posts silver and the sign backs green to match Connecticut's wood signs....(did the same thing with any signs i would put on my HO and years later, my N scale train layouts too!)

[jwolfer]

In first grade when we went on a class trip to the planetarium at Ocean County College the teacher asked me for an alternate route home because the road was closed due to forest fires.

Every Christmas one of my gifts is the newest edition of Rand McNally's Road atlas

I can identify cities from an airplanne based on the road pattern.   My wife was amazed I could tell her we were over Amarillo, TX from the roads when we went to her Grandmothers in California

[cjk374]

I did that all the time in our garage or driveway. Also, when I was really little, i designed roads in the sandbox with overpasses, mountains, intersections, etc. for matchbox cars.

I've done that. I even once built road signs out of Legos for it!

I used to use popsicle sticks for the posts holding the signs then draw them as close as I could to the interstate stye signs.  I even had one where I made it the California Nevada Stateline and the Nevada signs were with toothpicks with the back end braces just like the ones in Nevada.  I would really get into it.

Guilty.  My "sandbox" however, was a spot of red dirt.  Somewhere in my yard I found gray colored dirt.  I brought that to the red dirt and used it for my concrete pavement for my "interstate".  Made BGSs w/popsicles sticks and other route markers (all freelanced) as well.

[shadyjay]

I have to agree with 100% of the things mentioned on this thread. 

Also....

1.   In 2nd grade, I made a map that was 68' long, all on 8 1/2x11" "filler" paper.  My maps back then were actual scaled down versions of the roads themselves, showing all signs, lane markings, lights, etc.  Shortly later, I obtained large rolls of paper for my maps.  The scale was a lot more spread out, 6 1/2" would be equivilent to 1/2 mile, vs my 2nd grade map which was 4" is a half mile.  To obtain the data for this, I would write down what each sign on the highway said.  Going through Hartford or New Haven (CT) was more challenging with exits spaced close together and a ton of signs.... not to mention I-91 north of Hartford was under construction from the 80s to the 90s.  Still later on, I got carried away and added color, coloring in all BGSs, and then I did my own changes to the roads - adding lanes, closing exits, etc.

2.   I developed a network of roads and communities for the trails in the backyard where I grew up.  One day I actually went out into the woods and put signs up.  Since they were paper, they didn't last long at all!  In just the past few months, I have been trying to recall my "backyard community" - exits, signs, whatnot. 

I too have been told I'm a human GPS.  I had the ability to recite multiple exits on any interstate highway in New England.  When I was in college, people would say where they're from, and I'd tell them how to get there. 

[J N Winkler]

. . . you have a free Sunday, and start it thinking you may as well spend it hiving out 200 sign design sheets from a load of French dossiers de consultation des entreprises you downloaded last spring, and sorting out sign design and sign layout sheets from a Nevada DOT US 95 contract; but instead of doing that, you wind up downloading 80 signing plans from Georgia DOT.

[Dr Frankenstein]

. . . you have a free Sunday, and start it thinking you may as well spend it hiving out 200 sign design sheets from a load of French dossiers de consultation des entreprises you downloaded last spring, and sorting out sign design and sign layout sheets from a Nevada DOT US 95 contract; but instead of doing that, you wind up downloading 80 signing plans from Georgia DOT.

Sounds like what I would do.

[Michael]

This happened to me this morning:
...you say "Hey, that's Series F!" when you see a fleet number on a plow truck's sander.

[ctsignguy]

...*G* you buy a clock from a guy online simply because it has FWHA Series D numbers!!!

[yakra]

...when you've seen too many threads like this...

...when you think there's no such thing as too many threads like this!

[hm insulators]

Guilty.

To add to the thread:
...You draw roads with sidewalk chalk.  I would always run out of yellow chalk and I'd be left with an assorted color pack with everything but yellow.  At least I could get packs of just white chalk.  I wish I had a picture to post.  One of my neighbors a few years younger than me thought it was cool that I could draw roads.

I used to do that when I was a kid! I even drew telephone poles along the roads (of course, to an adult, it looked like the poles were lying down beside the road).

[hm insulators]

Another memory that was jogged while reading this thread: You gave street names to the hallways and corridors at school.

[Sykotyk]

Another memory that was jogged while reading this thread: You gave street names to the hallways and corridors at school.

My elementary school did that to help students remember where their classrooms were (if/when you actually had to leave your primary classroom).

[njroadhorse]

Another memory that was jogged while reading this thread: You gave street names to the hallways and corridors at school.

My elementary school did that to help students remember where their classrooms were (if/when you actually had to leave your primary classroom).

I remember that my elementary school did for Dr. Seuss's birthday IIRC, but the whole place was decked out, so it just went along with it.  I also remember in 2nd grade, our class had to design a city of sorts with all the things we thought we needed in it.  I was in charge of the signage

[Interstate Trav]

When you have a test your taking for a class and you have to give the Route from one city to another but you get it wrong because you give a shortcut and a bypass, and all the teacher goes by is the text answer.

[huskeroadgeek]

When family members call you for directions instead of using Mapquest or a GPS, knowing you'll give them the best route to their destination.

I have a sister who was making a trip from Lincoln, NE to Evansville, IN several years ago with her husband and in-laws to visit her sister-in-law who had just moved there. None of them had ever been anywhere near there before. They never asked me for directions, so I assumed they figured it out on their own. I got a call from my sister when they were getting close to St. Louis on I-70 and she asked me what road they should take in St. Louis to get to Evansville. I told her I-64, and then I asked her if they took a map or had directions. She said no-they just knew they had to go through St. Louis, and having been through Kansas City many times, they knew how to get to St. Louis, and she just figured when they got to St. Louis, they would call me to find out what road to take next.

[J N Winkler]

. . . you have a free Sunday, and start it thinking you may as well spend it hiving out 200 sign design sheets from a load of French dossiers de consultation des entreprises you downloaded last spring, and sorting out sign design and sign layout sheets from a Nevada DOT US 95 contract; but instead of doing that, you wind up downloading 80 signing plans from Georgia DOT.

Sounds like what I would do.

Search page for Georgia DOT's plans archive:

http://road-design.dot.state.ga.us/RoadDetailPlanSearch/index.cfm

It is still under development and not all fields in the search database have been populated--essentially, what they have is PI number and short job description.  A search for {signs} in the job description field will return 212 hits; {signing} will return 28.  By default the results sort by PI number, with older jobs (predating the present PI numbering system) having invented PI numbers beginning with "H."

For France (central government only):

https://www.marches-publics.gouv.fr/index.php5?page=entreprise.EntrepriseAdvancedSearch&searchAnnCons

I choose the relevant ministry (new acronym:  MEDDTL) and enter {signalisation} as the mot clé.  Unfortunately, DCEs for past contracts are not available.  The currently advertised contracts (about 8 hits at the moment) include signing for a bypass of Fleuré.  DCEs are delivered as ZIP files, with the PDF files containing signing having filenames like "Cahier de décors," "Fiches CORINE," "Fiches SHERPA," etc. (Corine and Sherpa are sign design packages which by default put out pattern-accurate output).

[burgess87]

. . . when, in high school, you use the "middle tile" of the hallway as a center left turn lane.