You Know You're A Roadgeek If...

[US81]

Or, better yet, you liken traffic signal indications to different facial expressions, depending on which face is illuminated . . .   

I still see green lights as , yellow lights as , and red lights as .

My earliest memory of my nascent roadgeeekiness.

[drummer_evans_aki]

...you are intrigued by the town/city names that make it onto Interstate exit signs.

Like Zzyzx, California? That one intrigued me.

[drummer_evans_aki]

If you can highlight highways that can connect major cities in Alaska, all of Canada, the mainland United States, and Mexico, you are DEFINITELY a road geek.

And yes, I am guilty of it. And I'm stoked too.

[drummer_evans_aki]

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

I AM SO GUILTY OF THAT ONE!!!!

[Scott5114]

Or, better yet, you liken traffic signal indications to different facial expressions, depending on which face is illuminated . . .   

I still see green lights as , yellow lights as , and red lights as .

I do the same, except I interpret the red as more of a 

[Molandfreak]

Or, better yet, you liken traffic signal indications to different facial expressions, depending on which face is illuminated . . .   

I still see green lights as , yellow lights as , and red lights as .

I do the same, except I interpret the red as more of a 

And when the light keeps you stopped for one or two cars to cross, when there are twenty people behind you, this is it: 

[hm insulators]

You go to the big PGA Tour event and when you get on the shuttle from the parking lot to the golf course, the driver says, "Okay, you are parked in Lot H and this is Stop 1, so remember: Stop H-1" and you say to yourself, "That's easy to remember--H-1, just like the freeway in Honolulu." That was me earlier this month when I went to the Waste Management Phoenix Open (the one Phil Mickelson ran away and hid with).

[CentralCAroadgeek]

You know you're a roadgeek if you question the directions given in an SNL "The Californians" skit. The guy says he's going to go to Rancho Cucamonga by taking "the 118 east to the 405 north to the 5 north to the 210 east." A roadgeek questions it by saying, "Why couldn't you have taken the 118 all the way to the 210 instead of having to go all the way north to the Newhall?"

[kphoger]

You know you're a roadgeek if you question the directions given in an SNL "The Californians" skit. The guy says he's going to go to Rancho Cucamonga by taking "the 118 east to the 405 north to the 5 north to the 210 east." A roadgeek questions it by saying, "Why couldn't you have taken the 118 all the way to the 210 instead of having to go all the way north to the Newhall?"

Answer:  Because he's a roadgeek, and wanted to drive on more highways than that.

[thenetwork]

Or, better yet, you liken traffic signal indications to different facial expressions, depending on which face is illuminated . . .   

I still see green lights as , yellow lights as , and red lights as .

I do the same, except I interpret the red as more of a 

I used to say Green Lights were HAPPY
Yellow Lights had a Bloody Nose
Red Lights were SAD.

[Brandon]

Or, better yet, you liken traffic signal indications to different facial expressions, depending on which face is illuminated . . .   

I still see green lights as , yellow lights as , and red lights as .

I do the same, except I interpret the red as more of a 

And when the light keeps you stopped for one or two cars to cross, when there are twenty people behind you, this is it: 

How about zero cars as I've seen here in Illinois?  Then it's more of this: 

[vtk]

You know you're a roadgeek if you question the directions given in an SNL "The Californians" skit. The guy says he's going to go to Rancho Cucamonga by taking "the 118 east to the 405 north to the 5 north to the 210 east." A roadgeek questions it by saying, "Why couldn't you have taken the 118 all the way to the 210 instead of having to go all the way north to the Newhall?"

Answer:  Because he's a roadgeek, and wanted to drive on more highways than that.

More likely answer: the guy's from Newhall, and isn't familiar with many highways that don't radiate to or from there.  (There are far too many people who default to driving past their house rather than make an effort to determine the shortest path from point to point...)

[Alps]

You know you're a roadgeek if you question the directions given in an SNL "The Californians" skit. The guy says he's going to go to Rancho Cucamonga by taking "the 118 east to the 405 north to the 5 north to the 210 east." A roadgeek questions it by saying, "Why couldn't you have taken the 118 all the way to the 210 instead of having to go all the way north to the Newhall?"

Answer:  Because he's a roadgeek, and wanted to drive on more highways than that.

More likely answer: the guy's from Newhall, and isn't familiar with many highways that don't radiate to or from there.  (There are far too many people who default to driving past their house rather than make an effort to determine the shortest path from point to point...)

Maybe he was going to Olive View Medical Center.

[route56]

Going back to Johnny Carson days... Directions to any of Art Fern's destinations inevitably involve the Slauson Cutoff (where you get out of the car.... ) or the fork in the road.

[andrewkbrown]

Or, better yet, you liken traffic signal indications to different facial expressions, depending on which face is illuminated . . .   

I still see green lights as , yellow lights as , and red lights as .

So I'm not the only one that sees facial expressions in traffic lights. I seems like a lot of you do.

[kphoger]

Going back to Johnny Carson days... Directions to any of Art Fern's destinations inevitably involve the Slauson Cutoff (where you get out of the car.... ) or the fork in the road.

If you read the phrase, Going back to Johnny Carson, and the very first thing that pops into your head is the Slauson Cutoff......you know you're a roadgeek.

Yes, that is what first came to my mind, so I'm glad it's actually what the post was about.

[vtk]

Going back to Johnny Carson days... Directions to any of Art Fern's destinations inevitably involve the Slauson Cutoff (where you get out of the car.... ) or the fork in the road.

You know you're in Generation Y if you've heard of the Slauson Cutoff a few times, but didn't know it was a Johnny Carson joke.  (Also, if you think Leno and NBC totally screwed Conan.)

[1995hoo]

You know you're a roadgeek when you wake up in the middle of the night to take a leak, you look at the clock to see what time it is, and you wonder briefly why the clock says "I-55."

(I must have been having a dream about driving somewhere, though I don't recall any specifics.)

[agentsteel53]

You know you're in Generation Y if you've heard of the Slauson Cutoff a few times, but didn't know it was a Johnny Carson joke.  (Also, if you think Leno and NBC totally screwed Conan.)

I've never heard of the Slauson Cutoff outside of Johnny Carson, and I was born in 1981.  do people in LA actually refer to the 90 freeway as that?

[A.J. Bertin]

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

I did that too as a kid! I pulled an empty red wagon around the driveway and back/forth along the sidewalk. LOL

I have a couple other ideas...

-You know you're a roadgeek if you spend your entire lunch hour at work playing on Google Maps and taking "virtual road trips" using Google Street View just to look at the highways, interchanges, signs, and urban areas.

-You know you're a roadgeek if you eat lots of meals alone at sit-down restaurants and bring in your atlas as reading material while you're waiting for your food.

[Duke87]

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

I did that too as a kid! I pulled an empty red wagon around the driveway and back/forth along the sidewalk. LOL

My grandparents used to have a sandbox in their backyard. My favorite thing to do in that sandbox was take a flat-bottomed shovel and drag it across the sand to make roads.

I remember walking to school pretending the street was a highway, the sidewalks were service roads, and crosswalks were overpasses over the highway.

Later, after we moved and now lived in our own house, the front and backyard were filled with a network of "streets". One winter day after it snowed I grabbed a shovel and started "plowing" the "streets".

[thenetwork]

...you loved to pick up your state's local driving manual every year, just for the photos (or drawings) of the road signs and/or traffic signals in the book.

[DaBigE]

...you loved to pick up your state's local driving manual every year, just for the photos (or drawings) of the road signs and/or traffic signals in the book.

Or a slight twist to that one...

You pick up the latest edition only to cringe each year, seeing the cheap "hand-drawn" sign illustrations they use instead of simply copy/pasting them from the MUTCD.    (Looking at you, WisDMV )

[kphoger]

There was serious thunder here last night, so I didn't sleep well.  What that means is that I remember several of my dreams from last night fairly well.  One of them included an abundance of four-digit Interstate shields in a particular area.  I soon figured out that they were error shields, and should have been state highway shields (Kentucky, maybe).  Another dream involved trying to stop and take a picture of erroneous STOP signs that were posted where they weren't needed (such as on the mainline approaching an on-ramp).  I wasn't able to stop at the opportune location for a photo long enough to snap a picture.  In my dream, my intent was to post said picture on AARoads.  Geez, I need a life...

[Dr Frankenstein]

While eating lunch yesterday, people at the table next to mine were arguing about the routings of some numbered highways.

*twitch*