You Know You're A Roadgeek If...

[akotchi]

• You, as a kid, pretended sidewalks were roads and expressways and did all kinds of reconfigurations in your head and "drove" around.
• You were, as a kid, one of the first to spot US 309 shields instead of PA 309 shields all over the mile markers on the southern segment from the Turnpike to Easton Road around 2008-ish (I forget). This was confirmed by a PennDOT coworker of my dad's.

Are they still around???

[DaBigE]

• You, as a kid, pretended sidewalks were roads and expressways and did all kinds of reconfigurations in your head and "drove" around.

And you used chalk, charcoal and/or whatever else was handy to draw lane lines, signs and so forth on said sidewalks, driveways and streets.



Mike

I used to take it a step further by taking cardboard from old boxes and making them into Type 2 barricades with a little tape and orange and white construction paper. That, combined with some plastic sports cones, I had my own little construction zones.

When I was little, I always wanted the plastic signs and working traffic light (Power Wheels accessories??) that Toys 'r Us used to sell. Alas, Santa never brought them.

[Henry]

I didn't want to create yet another thread, so here's an overpass over a 6-lane freeway done in "Micropolis" Lego style: one lane is 8 mm wide (i.e. one "row of bumpies").

Love how you re-created the features, like the BGS attachments, the grassy abutments and the concrete median and sound barriers. Never learned how to build one that way, though.

[Roadsguy]

• You, as a kid, pretended sidewalks were roads and expressways and did all kinds of reconfigurations in your head and "drove" around.
• You were, as a kid, one of the first to spot US 309 shields instead of PA 309 shields all over the mile markers on the southern segment from the Turnpike to Easton Road around 2008-ish (I forget). This was confirmed by a PennDOT coworker of my dad's.

Are they still around???

Nope.

[kurumi]

I didn't want to create yet another thread, so here's an overpass over a 6-lane freeway done in "Micropolis" Lego style: one lane is 8 mm wide (i.e. one "row of bumpies").

Love how you re-created the features, like the BGS attachments, the grassy abutments and the concrete median and sound barriers. Never learned how to build one that way, though.

Just to clarify: this is Rakanishu1024's work (the Flickr account owner), not mine.

[mgk920]

I also built my share of urban freeway interchanges in the sandbox.



Mike

[DaBigE]

I also built my share of urban freeway interchanges in the sandbox.



Mike

You know you're a roadgeek if your sandbox contained more roads and bridges than sand castles. I remember making a lot of roads, but never any castles.

[Rushmeister]

Your spouse is in the car with you and you wonder if that road veering off at a fork is an earlier alignment of the road highway you're on.  BUT you bite your tongue and don't say anything at all because you're tired of the ridicule you always get when you bring up the subject.

I also built my share of urban freeway interchanges in the sandbox.

I saw the sandbox comment, and the memories came flooding through my mind...

I was about 5 when my road-building aspirations outgrew the sandbox.  One fine morning in 1970, I noticed that my father had just tilled up the garden and I just couldn't help myself.  Without permission, I moved some of my fleet of toy cars and trucks into the garden, but soon discovered that the tilled earth wasn't quite smooth enough for suitable "driving".  So, I used my Tonka grader, bulldozer, and dump truck to begin constructing a network of "improved" roads at one end of the garden.  (Tonka really made some good stuff back then.)  After an hour or two I had made a lot progress at extending my highway empire to some of the more far-flung and previously uncivilized portions of the garden. 

Suddenly, I realized that my father was standing before me.  I looked up -- his hands were firmly planted on his hips and he didn't look very happy.  "Uh oh," I thought, "I'm in big trouble."  Then, slowly, a smile crept over his face and he chuckled a little.  Then he began to laugh when he saw how afraid and embarrassed I was.

Most of my empire ended up being rezoned that day for agricultural uses, but he let me keep a small section of the most "scenic" highway at one end of the garden.  Over the course of that growing season I enjoyed "driving" my cars on those roads, always with some sort of road construction project taking place (I think I used marbles for smudge pots around construction zones!).  I even fashioned little guard rails where my road went past a "canyon".  I wish my folks had taken pictures of the world I created that summer.

[agentsteel53]

Your spouse is in the car with you and you wonder if that road veering off at a fork is an earlier alignment of the road highway you're on.  BUT you bite your tongue and don't say anything at all because you're tired of the ridicule you always get when you bring up the subject.

need spouse upgrade...

[kphoger]

Your spouse is in the car with you and you wonder if that road veering off at a fork is an earlier alignment of the road highway you're on.  BUT you bite your tongue and don't say anything at all because you're tired of the ridicule you always get when you bring up the subject.

need spouse upgrade...

??? !

Apparently, the roadgeek itch is more sacred than marriage........

[agentsteel53]

??? !

Apparently, the roadgeek itch is more sacred than marriage........

more sacred than constant ridicule, for sure.

[Alps]

Your spouse is in the car with you and you wonder if that road veering off at a fork is an earlier alignment of the road highway you're on.  BUT you bite your tongue and don't say anything at all because you're tired of the ridicule you always get when you bring up the subject.

need spouse upgrade...

??? !

Apparently, the roadgeek itch is more sacred than marriage........

50% of marriages end in divorce. Maybe 5% of roadgeeks give up roads.

[Darkchylde]

Your spouse is in the car with you and you wonder if that road veering off at a fork is an earlier alignment of the road highway you're on.  BUT you bite your tongue and don't say anything at all because you're tired of the ridicule you always get when you bring up the subject.

need spouse upgrade...

??? !

Apparently, the roadgeek itch is more sacred than marriage........

50% of marriages end in divorce. Maybe 5% of roadgeeks give up roads.

Roadgeeks giving up roads? Heresy!

[hm insulators]

• You, as a kid, pretended sidewalks were roads and expressways and did all kinds of reconfigurations in your head and "drove" around.

I used to do that. Because we lived on a street with no sidewalks when I was growing up, I always used to enjoy going to family friends in neighborhoods that had sidewalks because I could take long walks and pretend I was driving down the highway. I would even pretend the "car radio" was playing a rock station by singing, making noises like an electric guitar, a bass, drums or whatever (not too loud, though, or people would think I'm even weirder than they already did! ) I remember doing that well into my teens, not just when I was little, either.

[cpzilliacus]

You know you're a roadgeek when you watch shows like "The Amazing Race," "Alaska State Troopers" and "COPS" (in part) to look at the highway infrastructure.

[Zmapper]

... You ask the theater attendant where the "rest area" is!

[Big John]

When a relative noticed an unusual sign, then i tell hell all about it and what the standard MUTCD sign should be with all the details.  Also had to correct her and give details of a VMS when she called it a "neon" sign.

Also when getting called at home to give driving directions for someone on the road, i recited what routes to taken, including what the signs will say along the way.

[Brian556]

The thing that offends you most about "Jersey Shore" is the incorrect NJ Route 35 sign on the kitchen wall.

[vtk]

...her and give details of a VMS when she called it a "neon" sign.

Doesn't MUTCD favor the term "changeable message sign"?

[allniter89]

....while watching a weather report you know which interstates will be affected by the storm. 
.....when hearing two (or more) cities mentioned, as in sports scores etc, you think of which highways you'd take to get from one city to the other.
.....when you see a car dealer license plate frame from out of town, you think of which highways you'd take to get from your home to where the car was bought. Same thing with 18 wheelers, they usually have their home terminal city on the truck, I think which highways I'd take to get there from my home.
I think my geekness leans more toward an obession with road maps. When I drove a 18 wheeler, sometimes when I was waiitng to load/unload I would open my Rand McNally Motor Carriers Road Atlas and just peruse state maps that I'd seen a 100 times before. Usually I found something I hadnt noticed before on a map. I guess I'm a map geek also, anyone else?

[rickmastfan67]

.. you get upset at the local news when they show or mention the wrong type of route. (Say something is a State Route when it's a US Route)

[Rushmeister]

.. you get upset at the local news when they show or mention the wrong type of route. (Say something is a State Route when it's a US Route)

Oh, man.  That drives me nuts.  It happens all the time during tornado season on at least one Indianapolis TV station.  When they break in with a special weather report, the radar imaging program they use just goes haywire with the route symbols.  I don't know if the problem is with the software designers or the users at the station, but I think at some time there may have been a discussion sort of like this...

"Shield or square on that state highway?"
"Oh, I don't know.  Which do you think is prettier?" 

(Duh)

[formulanone]

You listen to the local Highway Advisory Radio station, even if you aren't intending to take that road, that day.

[MVHighways]

-When you don't call Interstate 95 by "Route 128" and you are a lifelong Boston area resident
-When you get embarrassed when the driver of the car turns on his/her phone for directions (that happened to me today, we were leaving the Natick Mall to go onto I-90 and we are getting out, my mother turns on directions to our house and when she put it down, I pushed "END" on the map and told her to take a left on Speen Street); and also when said driver keeps on telling you that one other road is the opposite direction of what you are telling them (to get to I-95 from I-90 in Natick/Framingham you have to take 90 East; she kept telling me it is West--later, I told her 95 North will get you to US 3 North in Burlington which is where we want to be and she thought it was South.)

Oh, and as for I-90: stay tuned for the video

[D-Dey65]

• You, as a kid, pretended sidewalks were roads and expressways and did all kinds of reconfigurations in your head and "drove" around.

And when there were no sidewalks, you just used trails on the sides of the road, or into the woods.