Personal Street Signs
Mar. 8th, 2015 11:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebA bunch of matching signs have gone up in yards all over my neighborhood. One side says:
25 MPH
Thank you
The other side says:
Please
Slow Down
and has a picture of children playing.
These streets are the kind that have parking on both sides leaving enough room to drive comfortably down the middle of the street. Except that it's two-way traffic, so generally you make sure to pass in a spot where no one has parked on one of the sides of the street. So that, along with possible dogs, etc., darting out from between parked cars, keeps me at 25 mph or less.
However, I really, really want to modify these signs in a mean way. My current favorite idea is to add a 1 to the signs so they say 125 MPH. Hey, it could be worse. I could just as easily make them say 250 MPH.
And why am I so tempted to change them from something I agree with to something I don't? Especially when I'm such a rule-following nice person and strongly feel people should be able to do whatever they want in their own yards?
It's because they are telling me what to do on my streets. I'm allowed to go 30 MPH (by law) if I want and they are telling me to go only 25. I just turned a corner and am thus going only 5 MPH when I see one of them telling me to slow down. No. I'm not going to drive less than 5 MPH for the remaining half a mile to my house.
It's also because the signs say to me "I am letting my children play in the streets, OF COURSE, because where else could they possibly play? So you should not be racing your CAR through my kid's playground like that, you self-centered jerk who cares more about getting home one minute faster than you care about CHILDREN'S LIVES." I know that there is no way to keep your kids from running into the street every minute of the day. They learn how to unlock and open doors. They wake up when you're asleep. They don't always do what you say even when you've actually thought to tell them about all the specific things that come up. You are not allowed to chain them to their beds. I get all that. Still, I can't help interpreting the sign to mean that they want to control me instead of their own kids.
Finally, these signs are a hideous day-glo yellow.
Weirdly, I've decided I probably wouldn't be peeved if the signs said 30 MPH. Then they would just be reminding you of the law more often than the actual speed limit signs do, at no expense to tax payers, in their own yards.
25 MPH
Thank you
The other side says:
Please
Slow Down
and has a picture of children playing.
These streets are the kind that have parking on both sides leaving enough room to drive comfortably down the middle of the street. Except that it's two-way traffic, so generally you make sure to pass in a spot where no one has parked on one of the sides of the street. So that, along with possible dogs, etc., darting out from between parked cars, keeps me at 25 mph or less.
However, I really, really want to modify these signs in a mean way. My current favorite idea is to add a 1 to the signs so they say 125 MPH. Hey, it could be worse. I could just as easily make them say 250 MPH.
And why am I so tempted to change them from something I agree with to something I don't? Especially when I'm such a rule-following nice person and strongly feel people should be able to do whatever they want in their own yards?
It's because they are telling me what to do on my streets. I'm allowed to go 30 MPH (by law) if I want and they are telling me to go only 25. I just turned a corner and am thus going only 5 MPH when I see one of them telling me to slow down. No. I'm not going to drive less than 5 MPH for the remaining half a mile to my house.
It's also because the signs say to me "I am letting my children play in the streets, OF COURSE, because where else could they possibly play? So you should not be racing your CAR through my kid's playground like that, you self-centered jerk who cares more about getting home one minute faster than you care about CHILDREN'S LIVES." I know that there is no way to keep your kids from running into the street every minute of the day. They learn how to unlock and open doors. They wake up when you're asleep. They don't always do what you say even when you've actually thought to tell them about all the specific things that come up. You are not allowed to chain them to their beds. I get all that. Still, I can't help interpreting the sign to mean that they want to control me instead of their own kids.
Finally, these signs are a hideous day-glo yellow.
Weirdly, I've decided I probably wouldn't be peeved if the signs said 30 MPH. Then they would just be reminding you of the law more often than the actual speed limit signs do, at no expense to tax payers, in their own yards.
no subject
on 2015-03-09 07:18 pm (UTC)On the other hand, since I spend a lot of time on my bike, I have, on more than one occasion witnessed people driving well over 50mph through the neighborhood on streets with a 25mph speed limit - blowing through stop signs and just generally oblivious to the fact that they're causing a dangerous situation.
Perhaps you should just look at those signs as meant for other people, not you. :-)
-Cat
no subject
on 2015-03-09 07:22 pm (UTC)But clearly these drivers must be around sometime!