As I was driving around Las Vegas today, I came across three different areas of highway with signs that say, “Bump”…meaning, slow down as there is a bump in the road. Well - then fix the bump!
Isn’t that sort of like me putting a bumper sticker on my car saying, “Caution, my brake lights don’t work.”
Some kinds of floor just get bumpy so fast the crews would have to live there. In areas where that is known to happen, the sign is permanent - the bumps are not, but they’re stubborn and come back.
The sign is actually instructing you to get down with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.
In some cases the bumps are seasonal. In the winter, the water in the ground freezes and expands, creating frost heaves than can warp or crack the pavement. Even if they fix the bump, they know it’s going to reappear next spring, so they leave a sign there permanently to warn people.
Reminds me of the New Zealand tourist in the New South Wales interior…
In his hire car, on a highway late at night, he saw a sign saying “DIP”. He dutifully dipped his headlights, and next thing, he was airborne across a culvert at 60MPH. 
I am reminded of a small stretch of a highway here in San Diego that was built over an old trash landfill. The pavement on that stretch is constantly undergoing subtle shifts which eventually get sufficiently advanced to create a distinct almost-roller-coaster effect of bumps and dips.
When it gets to that point new asphalt is put down to level it out. But the landfill never stays still and sooner or later the bumps and dips always start developing again.
I thought “DIP” signs were what they put up after the kids who got the “SLOW CHILDREN” signs in front of their houses grew up.
My grandmother lives in a south suburb of Chicago which, I’ve been told, was laid down directly on top of a peat bog. Brilliant bit of engineering, that. All the roads sink and change shape - the most noticeable being the intersection with the train track. The train track and the road move at different rates, so when the road is fresh, it’s smooth sailing. When a bit of time has gone by, it’s teeth rattling. A little more time, and you literally have to slow down to about 10 miles an hour or risk damage to your car. Then they do whatever it is the do and the gap is gone for another 6 months or so.
The worst bit is not knowing they’ve filled it in recently and slowing down anyway, to the great consternation of the other drivers wondering why I’m suddenly driving like Minnie Pearl on barbiturates over a perfectly smooth train track. :smack:
Around here, there’s one stretch of road which is marked “Rough Road Ahead,” and sure enough that section is badly in need of repaving. Apparently, the city decided to be cheap and just stick a sign at each end of the bad part instead :rolleyes:
Which highway are you referring to?
The 52. It’s part of the section of it that runs immediately south of the Miramar Marine Corps Air Station that was built on the old trash landfill.
It’s so you don’t bottom out after a flying leap into the air. There are local roads that are flat for 9 months and in the winter sections sink up to 6 inches. It’s the road crew’s fault, because I’ve seen them rip up a good road to put utilities or a drainage pipe under the road and then the road got sink spots in the same spot every winter.
The sign our highway crews used years ago was Dip In Road, and a friend would always comment “Another retard in the road.”
This is in fun, not derision.
What should they call it? Irregular Surface Showing Signifcant Variations
In britain we have speed bumps to slow trafic in built up areas or known speeding blackspots. They come with signs to warn you in case you don’t see them and wreck your suspension.
A back road near us used to have a pretty good BUMP, with the requisite sign. Vandals used to change the sign pretty regularly, to DUMP, HUMP, RUMP, etc.
They actually did fix the road a few years back, so the sign came down, but we still call it HUMP DUMP ROAD.
Many years ago, in an act of juvenile delinquency, we used a nice stencil to change all of the signs in one little town which had read DIP to DIP SHIT.
You know, the OP asks a good question, but a better one is this: When you call a number and get the message that it has been changed to another number, why don’t they just connect you to the new number? Obviously they know what it is.
The two lane state highway that I drive to work was replaced last summer. Completely. Down to the dirt. About 3 miles of it.
It was closed at night except for two 15 minute periods for about a month. They where putting in new drainage culverts for that period.
Yep, the bump and dip that has always showed up this time of year is back again.
They must be a bit creastfallen. I suspect the bump it’s over some sort of high altitude peat bog.
Because that would require additional switching equipment, which costs money. The equipment to play the “new number” message is already in place for other messages, such as for temporary disconnects or line trouble and other error conditions.
There’s signs around here that say “HUMPS AHEAD”, and “SPEED HUMPS AHEAD”. Classic!