Unique, Odd, or Interesting Signs aka The good, the bad, and the ugly

[J N Winkler]

Merges from the left are sinister.



(Taken from the progetto esecutivo for ANAS contract BA 05/23, for rehabilitation work on the west part of the Foggia ring road.)

[jakeroot]

Merges from the left are sinister.



(Taken from the progetto esecutivo for ANAS contract BA 05/23, for rehabilitation work on the west part of the Foggia ring road.)

I'm not sure I fully understand what that sign is trying to say.

If I was driving down the road, and had to make sense of the sign immediately, I would assume that it's saying something about a dangerous "confluence" ; of lanes, roads, not sure.

[formulanone]

Merges from the left are sinister.



(Taken from the progetto esecutivo for ANAS contract BA 05/23, for rehabilitation work on the west part of the Foggia ring road.)

I'm not sure I fully understand what that sign is trying to say.

If I was driving down the road, and had to make sense of the sign immediately, I would assume that it's saying something about a dangerous "confluence" ; of lanes, roads, not sure.

60 meters doesn't seem like a lot of time to react, unless it's a bike path.

[jakeroot]

60 meters doesn't seem like a lot of time to react, unless it's a bike path.

Woah, great point. I don't think I fully grasped that distance until you pointed it out. I think in my head, I was filling in an extra '0'.

60 meters of advanced warning for a merge(?) seems very short...perhaps that's why J N posted it, then.

[bcroadguy]

I saw this very unique Japanese lane configuration sign on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/urbandesign/comments/12dfh81/mechanical_road_sign_in_japan/

[formulanone]

Merges from the left are sinister.



(Taken from the progetto esecutivo for ANAS contract BA 05/23, for rehabilitation work on the west part of the Foggia ring road.)

I’m not sure I fully understand what that sign is trying to say.

If I was driving down the road, and had to make sense of the sign immediately, I would assume that it’s saying something about a dangerous “confluence”; of lanes, roads, not sure.

60 meters doesn't seem like a lot of time to react, unless it's a bike path.

Woah, great point. I don't think I fully grasped that distance until you pointed it out. I think in my head, I was filling in an extra '0'.

60 meters of advanced warning for a merge(?) seems very short...perhaps that's why J N posted it, then.

Maybe that's why it's sinister. (I know, it's Latin root means "left".)

[1995hoo]

Maybe that's why it's sinister. (I know, it's Latin root means "left".)

If you ever watch F1, you may notice the Ferrari tire blankets are labelled in Italian (the other teams use English). While I recognize the Latin roots (I took six years of Latin), the word "Destro" for the front right still, all these years later, calls to mind a GI Joe cartoon character.

Merges from the left are sinister.



(Taken from the progetto esecutivo for ANAS contract BA 05/23, for rehabilitation work on the west part of the Foggia ring road.)

I'm not sure I fully understand what that sign is trying to say.

If I was driving down the road, and had to make sense of the sign immediately, I would assume that it's saying something about a dangerous "confluence" ; of lanes, roads, not sure.

That's what it means. It's calling your attention to a merge from the left in 60 m.

[formulanone]

Maybe that's why it's sinister. (I know, it's Latin root means "left".)

If you ever watch F1...

just a little too much

[JoePCool14]

Maybe that's why it's sinister. (I know, it's Latin root means "left".)

If you ever watch F1, you may notice the Ferrari tire blankets are labelled in Italian (the other teams use English). While I recognize the Latin roots (I took six years of Latin), the word "Destro" for the front right still, all these years later, calls to mind a GI Joe cartoon character.

Doesn't matter what language Ferrari use on their tyre blankets, they'll always be speaking their native language of Clown. 

[74/171FAN]

A very odd US 501 and US 701 assembly in Conway.  (https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10218528611727046&set=a.10218528634767622)

[odditude]

For those interested in Colorado's county road shields, Matt Salek has a page about them on his now-defunct site.  Nearly all of the images are dead links, but the info is still there in text form.

https://www.mesalek.com/colo/countynum.html

Wayback Machine to the rescue

[roadman65]

Next 3 exits is a little overboard.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/54480415@N08/51232215372

[wanderer2575]

Brand new sign installed today on the corner of my home lot, opposite the side street.  The post was installed Friday and I had a hunch the sign would be something like this.  I don't think this is in the MUTCD; it's a combination of a R3-2 (no left turn) and a R3-27 (no straight ahead).  Installed for additional control of the weekday morning and afternoon parade of mom-mobiles dropping off and picking up the little tykes from the parochial school down the street.  Doesn't affect me except that it's one more obstacle I'll have to face when mowing the lawn.

[roadman65]

This one with a later added US 17 shield couldn't have the engineer gauge it out first.

[plain]

All of those signs (as well as several others in Wilmington) needs to be replaced.

[74/171FAN]

Yes, I photographed that sign last month.

[LilianaUwU]

This one with a later added US 17 shield couldn't have the engineer gauge it out first.

Jesus, I know roadgeeks love when old road signs stay up, but with how unreadable this is, it should be replaced.

[Scott5114]

Jesus, I know roadgeeks love when old road signs stay up, but with how unreadable this is, it should be replaced.

Roadgeeks love when good old road signs stay up. Those suck.

[LilianaUwU]

Jesus, I know roadgeeks love when old road signs stay up, but with how unreadable this is, it should be replaced.

Roadgeeks love when good old road signs stay up. Those suck.

Unpopular opinion, but a lot of old signs sucked when they were put up. I feel like too many roadgeeks consider old to be automatically good, which isn't always true (I-190 in NY says hi).

[Scott5114]

Jesus, I know roadgeeks love when old road signs stay up, but with how unreadable this is, it should be replaced.

Roadgeeks love when good old road signs stay up. Those suck.

Unpopular opinion, but a lot of old signs sucked when they were put up. I feel like too many roadgeeks consider old to be automatically good, which isn't always true (I-190 in NY says hi).

"Old" in this case means "anything before 1970".

[zachary_amaryllis]

For those interested in Colorado's county road shields, Matt Salek has a page about them on his now-defunct site.  Nearly all of the images are dead links, but the info is still there in text form.

https://www.mesalek.com/colo/countynum.html

Wayback Machine to the rescue

This was quite informative, actually. I never have been able to figure out why we have roads like "54G" and "52E".
TIL.

[JoePCool14]

Brand new sign installed today on the corner of my home lot, opposite the side street.  The post was installed Friday and I had a hunch the sign would be something like this.  I don't think this is in the MUTCD; it's a combination of a R3-2 (no left turn) and a R3-27 (no straight ahead).  Installed for additional control of the weekday morning and afternoon parade of mom-mobiles dropping off and picking up the little tykes from the parochial school down the street.  Doesn't affect me except that it's one more obstacle I'll have to face when mowing the lawn.

I think if I lived there, I'd order a custom sign that says the same thing as the lower sign and get rid of that Clearview. 

As a side note, I find it incredibly frustrating the way neighborhoods get to block parents from picking up or dropping off kids from school. I don't think it's fair, unless your streets are private. Public streets should be fair game. Otherwise you end up funneling everyone to one or two locations and it just doesn't work.

[LilianaUwU]

As a side note, I find it incredibly frustrating the way neighborhoods get to block parents from picking up or dropping off kids from school. I don't think it's fair, unless your streets are private. Public streets should be fair game. Otherwise you end up funneling everyone to one or two locations and it just doesn't work.

To me, it just sounds like some people who can't stand noise moved next to a school for some reason and then complained that there's noise near the school. And towns love to bend over to just about any idiot without any decision making.

[jrStudios]

Photo from a 2007 capture via Google Maps.

This is a weird one.
This sign was likely a 1989 holdout. (If you wonder why I had that date, look at the highway plan photo in the Kentucky tab)

There is no mention of I-264 on this sign, therefore likely breaking MUTCD rules, despite Kentucky using the national MUTCD standard.

[JoePCool14]

It's basically another form of NIMBYism, and one of the dumbest variants at that. Schools are inherently local entities, as opposed to venues or shopping centers. So the people you're upset about are... your neighbors or close-to neighbors.

I live one house away from a school. Parents line the street in the morning and the afternoon on school days. Yes, it gets a bit chaotic, but only for about 20 minutes each time. The morning isn't even that bad, since that's more staggered. And I'm not even home to see either of them, I'm at work! So there's no reason I'd bug the village to do something about it. There's nothing to fix.