Helpful signs

I haven't posted on my blog for a while now. This is largely because I have been far too busy with writing my thesis... but also because I can never remember the interesting things that I want to post.

So I'm going to post something rather boring. This is a post about signs that I've seen today. Now I don't mean astrological signs, or voodoo christian signs from a ficticious god... I mean everyday road signs and public notices.

On the way into work today I saw a helpful LED matrix sign proclaiming "Thieves operating in this area" followed by "Remove all valuables from car". I couldn't help but wonder if this was a sign telling a potential theft victim to be on guard... or just a basic set of instructions flagged up for the local thieves.

Again, on public signs - I've always been a bit concerned about the apparent need for the government to write "Look right" at a pedestrian crossing point. I realise that this may be helpful to foreign visitors or where the street is not operating as per the norm... but I'm a little concerned with where its written. Surely the best sign to paint on the road is some abbreviated form of "Look at the traffic - not the bloody floor. Idiot"

Then we have the signs that are designed for idots. I'm specifically thinking of the kind of signs that have been put in place to cater for those people that would have naturally fallen by the wayside in human evolution if it wasn't for the caring few. Signs like "Caution Hot!" on the side of your newly purchased coffee. Surely you'd be pissed off it was cold? So why expect it to be anything other than hot?!? You don't see signs like "Warning - risk of brain-freeze" written on ice-cream packaging do you! Nope - coz its damn obvious that it's going to be cold.

Now I could continue on to interesting signs pointing to towns that have naughty names. I won't though as I think this is slightly crass and I think that the towns in question only have themselves to blame.