In my ongoing little rant about signs, let’s explore Pedestrian Crossings.
Did you ever notice that pedestrian crossings always have the same bald, black dude that has no hands or feet–and he’s always walking in the same direction? He’s never walking from left to right. Now, I have nothing against bald, black guys with no hands or feet, but can we at least get this dude to walk both ways? The arrow suggests he might walk the other way.
Here’s the rest of the scene at this site in Lansing. If everyone walks like that dude–always right to left–then everyone will walk in circles or squares to get around towns.
Here’s the same dude crossing at a speed bump. I’m not sure why it’s important to note that people might cross at a speed bump.
Here’s more signs on the same road as above. Note that in the first sign, one can’t cannot park while crossing the road.
This is sign warning people that the black, bald guy with no hands or feet might be crossing ahead.
Here’s our black, bald friend with no hands and feet again. In this one, there are lines on either side of his legs to suggest that he’ll be walking on a crosswalk…and yet there are no lines suggesting a crossing is here. I also question the likelihood that this guy is going to walk in the middle of a raised bed of flowers/weeds.
At this crossing, we might expect to see a bald, black dude with no arms or legs crossing with a bicycle on top of his head.
And yes, our friend might still going from right to left…in spite of the arrow.
Speaking of going from right to left, even people who don’t look like school children apparently walk from right to left. Kids don’t look like this at all–they carry backpacks and might nowadays have their heads down, looking at their phones. The bald, black, handless and feetless people depicted here look like they have purses or brief cases…more like teachers. Can’t we update these signs?
The fact that FINES DOUBLE is encouraging because if you’re going to hit a teacher AND a fairly adult-like student, you probably should pay for both offenses.
Here’s a sign at a Zoo warning us that the crossing over a bridge might be slippery. This same zoo has plenty of animals that it would be fun to jump over gates and fences to interact with so I can pet them. But there’s no signs warning me about that.
Here’s a sign at a newly constructed bridge warning me that it might be slippery. To get to this bridge I had walk over a sidewalk where the river had oozed over the banks and froze on the sidewalk. It was super slippery–I nearly fell and broke every bone in my body. That was much more dangerous than this bridge. Do we really need to warn people at every pedestrian crossing?
Here’s a sign for pedestrians that seems unnecessary. To get to the sidewalk, one has to walk across a street and walk over a bunch of lumpy–in this case also frozen–dirt. In addition, the barricade suggests the sidewalk is closed right there, not ahead. Do we really need a sign here?
Here’s another sign on a sidewalk that isn’t necessary. To get to this DETOUR sign the guy in the photo had to walk over lumpy, uneven ground, which seemed kinda dangerous. When he got to the DETOUR sign–he went in the opposite direction anyway.
I think this is just another sign there’s too many signs out there.
