Five Places You Would Expect to See This Sign, Other Than a Mall Parking Lot
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This sign is placed at an unmarked crossing area between the local mall and the Toys R Us. Though unmarked, it does have those big concrete barriers so a car cannot take the crosswalk as a short cut into the parking lot. The road it crosses is a sort of perimeter road around the mall, which also borders a smaller strip mall which includes the aforementioned Toys R Us.
Yes, cars zip along this stretch of road with reckless abandon, but I thought that’s what prompted the invention of speed bumps. Nope, not one good bump around to slow down anything. The burden of safety is placed solely in the hands of the pedestrian. It’s almost like if you did get hit by a car, the mall and driver would be absolved from any responsibility.
Victim: Ow!
Driver: Dude, didn’t you see the sign?
Victim: Call an ambulance!
Driver: I have to go. You should really think about the risks you take. They could get you killed, you know.
Police Officer to Victim: You are under arrest for walking into the path of a speeding vehicle. So, you’re just going to lie there and ignore me? (Victim gets Tasered for good measure. OK, one more time. Just to be sure.)
Victim: Ow!
And so on.
Why they went to all the trouble to put a sign and barriers there without marking the road is beyond me. I do know, however, five places where you would think this sign should be, but probably isn’t.
- At the trailhead of the unexplored American West
I’m guessing that it would have been a wooden sign, but still, you’d think it was implied to those who made the attempt. - Mount Everest
Of course, the sign would be there for the foreigners. Everyone knows that the Sherpas can navigate those mountains with their eyes closed. - The line in the dirt that mean kid drew that you dared cross
If it’s any consolation, that kid is either in jail or unhappily married to a domineering wife while paying child support for fifteen children from four previous wives. - The Amazon
Home to botflies and the dreaded Candiru fish, the Amazon is a wonderland for people wishing to play host to other organisms. In spite of all the horrifying Candiru stories and graphic YouTube videos of botfly larva removal, people still go there. It needs a sign. A really big sign. - Death Valley
What better place to adventure on your own than a place with the word “death” in it’s name. Oh, did I mention that it you can visit Furnace Creek and Badwater while on your adventure? Take solace in the fact that you wouldn’t be alone, but pretty darn close. The Timbisha Shoshone Tribe inhabits an area around Furnace Creek. Go to them for advice on desert survival, because you’ll need it.
Props to Nancy, my most awesome wife, who came up with the idea for inspired this post and urged me to take the picture, and to Joe for helping out with 4 and 5.
This post has 6 comments
July 7th, 2008
I have a sign like this I hang just outside our bathroom on ‘Chili night’…umm, not for me, for my wife. Yeah, that’s the one.
Signs enthrall me. Like how much did that sign cost to make and install? Good stuff. I actually have a great sign picture to post this week. Word!
Yes, the wife, of course. I leave the bathroom smelling of roses, too.
I’m tempted to spray paint a crosswalk to see what happens. It’s funny that they spent all that money on establishing the crosswalk, but didn’t want to paint it. Seems like a demilitarized zone or something.
July 7th, 2008
It’s almost like if you did get hit by a car, the mall and driver would be absolved from any responsibility.
Sadly, that’s not terribly hard to imagine. Laws seem to favor the idiots among us. Someone turns in front of you, and you hit him, it’s your fault for not having your vehicle under control; never mind that you had a green light and the guy waited until you were really close before making the turn.
Michelle Gartners last blog post..Five Places You Would Expect to See This Sign, Other Than a Mall Parking Lot
I read a headline today about a guy who took down a robber and then was charged with assault. I don’t get it.
Thanks for the comment Dan, er Michelle, or whoever you are. ;)
July 7th, 2008
Dang! Remember when I was testing your comments for the spammer exploit? Well, so did my browser…
That wasn’t Michelle…
dcrs last blog post..Blogging for Money? Don’t Quit Too Soon!
July 7th, 2008
WOW I HAVE BEEN HIJACKED!!!!!!
That’s scary…
Michelle Gartners last blog post..Yes- I do like to Mess Around in Photoshop…
By Dan of all people. I can’t say I’m surprised. I saw it coming, given his checkered past. :)
July 7th, 2008
Also I had this weird feeling come over me…
first I was wondering “did I read this before?”
Then I wondered, “when did I comment on here- what did I say?”
I got to quit smoking bacon…
Michelle Gartners last blog post..Yes- I do like to Mess Around in Photoshop…
Yes, you have read this before and you commented on how awesome I am. Unfortunately, that post was somehow deleted, so I can’t prove it.
How weird, I saw a post today where this woman made chocolate chip and bacon cookies. For real. They looked really good, which sort of concerns me.
July 8th, 2008
Just to clarify my industrious thoughts on this blog post:
I offered that it may be a good idea to use this a theme post once in a while to put the “sign-age” in a picture with proper perspective to it’s potential utility in real life… as a question and a “what if…” form of the context:
For instance:
no one would see this sign posted at the Grand Canyon…
the class 1-9 rapids of the Colorado River
The Gobe Desert, the bottom of Mount Everest, the Nile or Amazon Rivers…
Nor do these types of warnings appear at the intersection of 6-lane Roads, in town where the “Green-man Walk” sign says go for three seconds then, the dreaded “Red-man Don’t Walk” sign flashes while you are standing in the middle of lane 2 of six, where you are still 4 lanes and a median away from safety.[Etc., ad infinitum]
To place this sign in the many places that it would at least show some value in terms of: “Cross at own Risk” and the properly weighed pro’s and con’s of “Risking a Crossing” may actually cause one to reflect on the dangers of doing so… in opposition to pondering the multitude of lawsuits that could bear down on the one that chooses this death defying task of looking both ways before crossing a road that is truly a 10ft wide path in a mall’s perimeter.
In this case, I want to make it clear that you would never see this sign at the four-way stop, 1000 feet beyond this location - - where any pedestrian is actually at a 10-fold level of increased “true potential risk” of being zoomed over by the “pause-stoppers,” who are looking at the traffic light 50 ft ahead, which is what these drivers are “actually” assessing, in context to the traffic light and whether they can or cannot make it, if they actually stop at the 4-way.
In essence a 4-way stop, is inevitably designed to calculate the “Risk” involved for the driver’s timing while deciding if they should “actually stop or not”… and has no real meaning in regard to the possibility that a pedestrian is part of this picture at all.
Once again, no matter how you slice it, dice it, or in this case, place the sign labeled, “cross at own risk,” it is simply the dumbest sign in the entire system of erecting, “… Sign, Sign, everywhere a sign, f***ing up the scenery and blowing my mind… do this don’t do that can’t you read the sign?”
“swim at own risk” is not posted in the places that could cause a thinking human to pause and consider the risk of swimming in a hammerhead breeding ground, say at a beach on the Yucatan peninsula’s NE most portion, in the Sea of Cortez… nor is “walk at own risk” posted at the rim of the Grand Canyon overlook.
My idea involved a humor-filled presentation of placing this sign, or variations of it, in locations that the signs could be appropriately placed, and where they would be of “True” service, if these dumb, scenery sucking signs must exist to begin with.
Or just let me be in charge of the signs that litter our world in the same quantity that toxic waste is now destroying our world’s water supply.
So, Kudos to pete & joe for their efforts, but not me, please.
nances last blog post..Dog and Bunny Show, Episode 2: "Fetch"
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