Didn't really need the "long-haired freaky people" part of that title, but I just really, really like the way it trips off the tongue. The Five Man Electrical Band is another underrated group I should've mentioned in a previous post. I understand they still reunite and tour occasionally. Great harmonies.
Anyway, that's not what this post is about. It's about a certain class of sign that I see popping up all over the place.
This may be something akin to saying, "the sky is blue" or "water is wet" but, I don't understand the DMV, or whoever it is that's responsible for these things.
First of all, they're often put up on heavily-traveled streets or even expressways. If you're flowing with traffic, how the heck are you supposed to know when the sign is indicating your speed? We were travelling last weekend in pretty heavy traffic when we passed one of these telling us that our speed was 68-72-75-77-66-80-72-71-79. If I'm doing 66 in a 65 zone, I don't much care. If I'm doing 79, I consider it pretty borderline. If I'm looking back and forth from my speedometer to the sign to try to figure out when it's pointing at me, then I'm not watching the road and I'm an accident waiting to happen, which is what I believe these signs actually accomplish.
Even if I'm in sparse traffic with one lane of traffic in either direction and it's obvious when the sign is indicating my speed, this tends to be my thought process:
- I'm speeding (I'm always speeding).
- Scan for a cop.
- No cop, keep going.
What's the real percentage of people out there that see these signs, know when they're being clocked, realize for the first time that they're speeding, and as a result of all this, slow down? I'm betting it's pretty darn low.
This, to me, would be much more effective:
But this is really overkill. When I see the cop car, I really don't need the sign telling me how fast I'm going. My guess is that this is also true of most drivers.
Finally, though, what's up with this one?
