Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign. Unfortunately, Most of them are Pointless.

 ~  In the Land of the Blind, even the Man with One Eye and a Peanut Allergy isn't so Stupid as to Need to read the Warning Label on the jar of Peanuts.  ~

                 Yeah, they’re really not.  Motorcycles aren’t everywhere.  Matter is everywhere.  Motorcycles are confined to roads, driveways, Sturgis, North Dakota, and the Wendy’s parking lot on Saturdays.

                 “Deaf Child at Play.”

                What if he’s not at play?  What if he’s at sleep, at daydreaming, or at law?  And does the fact that the kid is deaf mean that he can't see a Chevy barreling down on him at sixty-miles-an-hour?  A 'Daycare Center in the Middle of the Road' sign might make me slow down.

                 “Contains Peanuts.”

                You can now find that warning sign on jars of peanuts.  Anyone with a peanut allergy who doesn’t know that he’s eating a peanut when he’s eating a peanut probably deserves to die.  Natural selection works like that. 

                Those are just some of the obvious ridiculous signs that are everywhere in our loony, loopy, overly-litigious society.  McDonald’s tells us that their coffee is hot.  Why?  Because somebody spilled hot coffee on herself and sued them.  Now they feel the need to warn us all that something that we assume is going to be hot, is, in fact, hot.  We’re big on warnings these days: terror alert, smog alert, child abduction alert.  And what do you do when you see that a child has been abducted and is now, they think, riding in a Blue Ford Focus?  You can look to your left and your right.  You can make sure that if you, too, are driving a Blue Ford Focus, you hurry up and drop your kid off at soccer practice.  Other than that, there’s pretty much nothing you can do.

                The warning signs that really freak me out these days are the ones where the people who are CAUSING the problem are also warning you about its negative effects. Jack Daniels is telling me about the dangers of drinking and driving.  Six Flags is telling us that pregnant women shouldn’t ride their upside-down, loop-to-loop roller coasters.  Verizon is advising us not to text and drive.  It’s getting to the point that, a few years down the road, Honda is just going to tell us not to drive at all, in their groundbreaking “Is it really worth it?” campaign to raise awareness about the dangers of living and driving. 

                Some of the signs aren’t meant for everyone.  I don’t think that those random, “Do Not Mow” signs on the shoulders of highways are for the general public.  I could be wrong.  Maybe “Flash Mows” are becoming a big problem for the DOT.  Have do-gooders with John Deeres overrun our interstates?  I’m pretty sure that the bridge height warnings, “Nine Feet and Seven Inches” are only for truckers and Sasquatches.  I would have thought that truckers knew not to try and force their large vehicles into tight spaces, but apparently not or else these signs wouldn't exist.  The picture is from Griffin, Georgia in front of bridge where so many trucks got stuck that they had to reinforce the point with a banner.

                I’m waiting for the day when we can turn this idea on its head.  Half of the warning signs could simply read, “Well, Duh” and the point would still come across.  We could start a “Well, Duh” advocacy group to remove ludicrous signs from cluttering our already crowded information centers.  We might have to kill a few lawyers to pull it off, but would that really be that big a loss?