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May 15, 2006 12:03 AM
Broken: Road status sign
Steve Horne submits a picture taken in Pelham, Alabama:
This has to be one of the most poorly thought-out signs I have seen. When is this road going to be closed? One week from when? Which three days of the week?
This sign definitely doesn't serve as a very useful warning.
I'd like to see if there's any valid argument for not broken. I doubt it. This one's pretty cut-and-dried.
broken but not surprising, given the state this one's comin' out of. Here in the south, we take a casual attitude to public vehicular notification: "Road Closed fer the next five hunderd yards or so. It's a fur piece. 'Speck you'll wanna tern that arount."
Here's an argument for not broken...
It probably means 7 days from when it was put up. Regardless of whether one knows when exactly it was put up, one knows that the road will be closed within 7 days, then opened 3 days later, assuming closing and reopening are prompt and on time.
Fuzzy - What if you went past the sign for the first time on the last day the road was open? You wouldn't know that the road would be closed the next day, but you would think it'll be closed sometime the next week.
Impossibly broken. The sign should just say "Road closed 5/22-5/25" or whatever the projected closure dates are. It would be shorter and more accurate.
I would guess they didn't know the exact dates, but felt compelled to warn the populace anyway. Nothing's more confusing than someone trying to say something they don't know.
Everything posted here should be so gloriously stupid.
I've seen plenty just as bad, if not worse, in California. A lot of the freeway exit ramps here have signs stating they'll be closed intermittently for a period of a year or two - in other words, we're going to close it whenever we feel like it and not warn you. I especially love the one that went up near home that had a date range of four or five years on it.
Another variation is the message sign that says the freeway is going to be closed 4/12/06 starting at 12 a.m. to 5 a.m. And yet, the freeway is reopened the next day. How about it's just going to be closed during those hours? No "starting" necessary, because that implies that it's going to continue beyond that point.
Maybe this is a ploy to get people to stop taking this road entirely.
Driver sees sign
Driver plans new route
Driver takes new route for a couple weeks
Driver returns to old route
Driver sees sign again
Driver decides he like the new route better anyway.
Why do people think the point of this site is to post broken things and then try to figure out a reason that they aren't broken? That's not the point!!
It's rural Alabama. You drive by the sign every day, so you know when it was put up. If you're not from around here, who cares what you think?
"Why do people think the point of this site is to post broken things and then try to figure out a reason that they aren't broken? That's not the point!!"
The point is to post broken things, but since some things aren't broken, the actual point is to post things and then try to figure out whether they're broken or not, to see if they really belong here.
"my question is what was grayed out at the top."
Probaly the Road name.. so people couldn't try to find it.. or it is a private road on a power plant or factory, in which case it wouldn't be broken most likely because there would be a sign in the building as to what dates they were..
They wen't into a lot of expense for a possibly temporary sign and it doesn't look like a road department sign so I am leaning towards it being a private road sign..
The reason why the ductape is on the sign, because it has already happened and they haven't removed the sign or it hasn't happened yet
Reminds me of the ad, painted on the front of Joe's Crab Shack: "Free Crabs Tomorrow!"
If you inquire, they just say to come back tomorrow. Broken on purpose.
Certainly broken:
The sign is so very vague that anyone who does not know the date the sign was placed (which is most people) cannot determine when the road is to be closed.
:::Steve J:::
Absolutely. When visiting San Francisco the other year, I was about to take the exit directly before the Bay Bridge. I'm pretty sure it had one of the signs you describe, but the police officer closing the ramp did it so quickly that the car right in front of me got through, but I could not. Weird....
This is the most retarded sign i have ever seen. and Why r u reading this, i think i remember seeing that sign B4. lol
This is my photo.
About the tape: It covers some handwritten text that says "6/14/05 from this date" (or whatever the date was, don't remember). Some well-meaning city worker realized the sign was broken and tried to fix it. The city covered it with duct tape to restore the sign's pristine ambiguity.
About the road: It is a public city street leading NEVER CLOSED...into my neighborhood. BTW, after about a week of looking at this sign, it was taken down... the road never closed.
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no worries, I'm sure tomorrow they will put forth the effort and put up a "this road will be closed in six days for three days" sign, after all, this is a branch of our government right? first...
Posted by: achilles at May 15, 2006 12:19 AM