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PaperclipPerfector  11hr ago (text post)   422 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 10, 2026

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A friend of mine was in charge of signs and pavement markings for PennDOT District 6 before his retirement a few years ago. I once engaged him as an expert witness in a traffic case, just because I liked the idea of bringing in an expert to fight a speeding ticket. I'll have to ask him if there are any signs that annoy him, but he seems more irritated by poor implementation. A town near where he grew up made a bunch of traffic "improvements" that PennDOT thought were necessary but everyone else was against, and when the project was complete he drove down there to take a look and said that whatever other problems there were with the plan they got the signs wrong. He refuses to go into Pittsburgh because he doesn't like the way they do their signs.

In other sign-related news, there's an increasing problem, mostly in rural areas, of people, and especially large trucks, getting stuck on bad roads. This is the inevitable result of people blindly relying on GPS, not realizing that it will direct them onto anything open for vehicular traffic regardless of surface, winter maintenance status, etc. Some municipalities have responded by posting signs that say "No GPS Route" on roads where this is a particular problem. My friend told me that these were not MUTCD approved signs, and that they were posted on local roads (that don't strictly follow Federal guidelines) and not state roads, but that he thought that the MUTCD should adopt something similar, since one of the most frequent constituent complaints he received was trucks getting stuck on roads they had no business being on.

when the project was complete he drove down there to take a look and said that whatever other problems there were with the plan they got the signs wrong

LOL. Just a few weeks ago I myself sent to PennDOT a complaint about some signs that were blatantly wrong. Multiple signs all said "left lane ends, merge right", but in reality the right lane ended and motorists had to merge left! And I drove past these signs for many months before I got around to making the complaint. I imagine the lawsuit resulting from a crash at that location would be legendary. (No standards compliance? No design immunity!)

he thought that the MUTCD should adopt something similar

MUTCD-compliant signs serving this purpose already exist.

  • R3-1: "trucks over XX tons no right turn"

  • R5-2: "no trucks"

  • R12 series: "weight limit XX tons", "axle weight limit XX tons", "weight limit 2 axles XX T, 3 axles YY T, 4 axles ZZ T", etc.

  • W8 series: "pavement ends", "loose gravel", "rough road", etc.

Presumably the municipal governments are just too incompetent to install them (and pass ordinances backing up the R (regulatory) signs).

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