Writing down signs as you travel

[huskeroadgeek]

I'm curious if anyone else has ever done this. I've never taken that many pictures of road signs-instead, off and on since I was a teenager, I have written down highway signs on trips I have taken when I wasn't driving. I especially really got into this when I went on some long bus trips with a choir I sang with in college. I did this for a couple of reasons-one it gave me something to do so I wouldn't get bored on long trips, but it also gave me a record of the road signs that exist on the different stretches of highway I traveled on. Later on, if I wanted to know what the signs said at a particular intersection or exit, I could just look up what I had written down. It also let me know what a sign used to look like before it was replaced.

There were always some interesting things about it-I'd always get the "what are you doing?" question from other people, and while writing down signs on rural stretches of road was pretty easy, doing so when traveling through a large city with lots of overhead signs was pretty challenging. I haven't done this for a few years and I may not do it again since the need for doing so is replaced by having Google Street View available. But I still like to look at these occasionally, especially some of my older ones which go back to the late 80s. Again-I'm just curious as to whether anyone else ever did this or anything similar.

[yanksfan6129]

I've never done it, but I'd be interested to see some of your drawings.

[huskeroadgeek]

Much of them would be difficult for anyone else to read. My writing has always been somewhat messy, plus when you consider trying to write in a vehicle that is sometimes bouncing up and down, they are sometimes hard to decipher if you don't have some idea of what they say. Oddly enough, some of my older ones seem to be easier to read-I guess the legibility of my writing has declined some as I got older.

[Duke87]

Closest thing I've ever done is make notes of the nearest mile markers to sequentially numbered exits.

I have drawn signs before, but never of anything real.

[Android]

Nope never really wrote down signs.  Been taking photos of some here and there ever since I started driving long distances in the early 90s.  Then after I went to digital cameras... well, I take way too many photos of signs. 

[SSOWorld]

Photo snapping is much easier - using Google street view as a backup - albeit not a reliable one.

[oscar]

The only time I've written down signs is to get info for my Hawaii and Alaska freeway exit lists.  I've sometimes also used a hand-held tape recorder, though that didn't work well.  More often, I'll take photos as I drive, as a substitute for taking notes, but the resulting photos are low-quality and not web-worthy.

[Android]

  More often, I'll take photos as I drive, as a substitute for taking notes, but the resulting photos are low-quality and not web-worthy.

It helps to have a good camera - that's part of why I eventually got a long zoom camera with a decent sensor and image stabilization - so I could get hurry-up snapshots that might actually be usable.  Still gotta have time for a focus lock though. 

[J N Winkler]

When I was in college and taking weekend roadtrips, I occasionally considered writing down sign legends but generally preferred to commit them to memory because I didn't want to try to handle a pen and paper while driving.  I do have a few sign drawings in my trip notes.

On-the-fly transcription of sign messages prompts the thought, "There has to be a better way," but if one exists, I have not found it.  Some state DOTs maintain sign logs, but this practice is far from universal, the logs that are maintained are often not portable (frequently they are inventories maintained for purposes of planning sheeting upgrades), and getting hold of the logs can mean hassling with an open records request.  Windshield-mounted video cameras are another possibility but the footage is generally not of high quality unless internal reflections are controlled, and if the purpose is just to scoop the sign messages, there is a lot of wasted footage to go through.  Handling a still camera while driving is open to the same objections as pad and pen.

I originally got into collecting state DOT traffic manuals and sign drawings books (a pursuit I have now largely abandoned owing to the demands of the signing contract hunt) because I wanted high-quality drawings of unusual or cryptic signs I would encounter on driving trips.  Nebraska was particularly rich in these curiosities:  "cattle brand inspection," "fuel - mileage - proration," "range fires," etc.  I soon discovered, however, that many of the most interesting variations tend to be treated as recurring special details rather than as state-specific standard signs--the signs warning of Mexican firearms laws are classic examples of this.  This is one reason my focus has shifted toward signing plan sheets.

P.S.  Transcription of interesting sign messages may not even be a possibility if you don't know the language.  I have had this problem in Wales.

[Chris]

I don't think writing and driving is a good combination, so I never did that.

That said, I did take approximately 22,000 pictures from behind the wheel, although long phototrips have subsided somewhat since I got a good quality video camera and put highway videos on Youtube. The views on Youtube (550,000+) still exceed the Flickr views I get (450,000). Most highways within a one-day range from my hometown have been photographed anyway, by me or other highway enthusiasts. So I generally only take pictures on multi-day road trips, for example in Switzerland, France and Italy this year.