Some Very Unusual Traffic Signs
Plus a new Inconspicuous News Roundup, and more!
My recent post about endearingly unnecessary Stop signs prompted a lot of fun reader responses, including one from my longtime pal Liz Clayton, who reports that there’s a oddly growth-stunted Stop sign in the town of Michigan City, Indiana, where she often goes to visit family. She sent along the photo shown above, using her four-foot-tall daughter for scale. “We laugh at it every time we see it,” she says.
The reason for the sign’s diminutive stature is unclear. I was thinking maybe baseball greats Ozzie Smith, Robin Yount, Barry Larkin, and Cal Ripken Jr. all hailed from Michigan City (shortstops, get it?), but such is not the case. Interestingly, Google Street View indicates that this corner had a standard-height Stop sign as recently as 2023. Liz speculates that since the sign is near the shore of Lake Michigan and is therefore essentially anchored in sand, perhaps it sank! Hmmm.
Liz says there are no other low-rider signs in the vicinity, but she notes that there’s an unusually small Dead End sign about a block away:
Liz says that little Dead End diamond on the utility pole is “clearly not municipal” and thinks a local resident stuck it there, perhaps as a riff on the nearby low-altitude Stop sign. I’m not sure I agree; I think it could be legit. Either way, though, it pairs nicely with the Stop sign.
Next up is reader Kevin Coffin, who noticed a bit of a head-scratcher in Oceanside, California:
