Not when drivers are trained properly. That’s what you should be pitting.
The yield sign, along with the stop sign, are two of the few international signage conventions America uses. (I’m guessing your location here.) Inverting the triangle, or changing the colours, would make it contradictory to these conventions.
Hmm. I’ve spent plenty of time on the busiest roads in Europe, and never had to stop to join one except when the traffic itself was stationary.
I’ve always thought the yield sign was an extremely compact way of getting across some fairly complicated information. One easily recognizable symbol tells us, “You don’t have to stop, but if there’s another car coming, he’s got right-of-way. If you don’t stop, and there’s an accident, it’ll automatically be your fault.”
Sort of takes the grandeur out of “STOP.”
I have a theory about the OP, but to cover the bases I’ll first respond to it straight.
“Yield” does mean “stop” if proceeding would take a driver into the path of any other vehicle or pedestrian, forcing them to alter direction or speed. It would take a much longer separate merge lane than is common to do this while maintaining highway speeds. The purpose of the sign is not to enhance the speed with which traffic merges: it is to make clear the priority assigned to each merging stream. You are a droplet in the lesser of the two streams. You wait for the other guys until there are no other guys close enough for you to impede or interfere with. “Yield” is an almost perfectly antithetical concept to the “blending in with traffic by taking your chances at a good forty or fifty MPH” theory of driving. In fact, “yield” has little truck with the whole notion of blending in. Your lot when faced by a yield sign is not to join the traffic on the road you are about to use, it is to watch it go by and resume your own progress after it has passed. Yield signs are red because that is the color reserved for regulatory signs, which require attention and obedience. They are not green because they are not guide signs indicating locations and distances to places of interest, which are ignored by drivers who don’t need them. They are not commonly mistaken for martinis because they lack olive, lemon twist, or onion (for the Gibson-oriented driver), and they are not oriented flat-side down in order that they not be mistaken for a liquibid decongestant tablet.
The toll-takers who irritate you are only there because of drivers who do not carry exact change for tolls, even though someone who can routinely blow through a yield sign at 50 and isn’t dead yet could probably be expected to know about such things as tolls in advance. I will refrain from commenting on the philosophical perspective that decries the delay caused by the car in front of him asking directions or exchanging a pleasantry as “social hour” and yet finds room in its day for the same toll-taker to count out nineteen dollars and fifty cents in change.
Now, for an answer based on my theory about the OP:
Depending on how tough your local open-mike night is, I’d rate the routine as slightly better than average. The real problem with it is that since the subject itself is so well-used, it doesn’t much matter how fresh the material is: the crowd will think it has heard it before. So you’re not going to get credit for much originality. Other than that, I think you’re onto something with the sign-color riff, but you should expand it. Work up a routine about how signs seem designed to cause bad driving. They’re red, which means danger, and who drives their best in a constant state of anxiety? It’s the same color they’ll use if there’s a terrorist with a bomb in your back seat. It’s also the color they graded your driving test in when you failed it. Also, they use poorly-chosen words. “Stop” is clear enough. But “yield?” Who besides the guys who paint yield signs ever uses this word? If you look it up in the dictionary you find out it means “surrender.” So driving is scary dangerous, and you should just give up. I’d lose the Shawshank reference – too old, and you don’t get much for it. The aircraft carrier line could be funny if you reconstruct it as a story about you having to take off from a standing start, and put the audience in the car with you in the cockpit: “BTS to tower, request clearance…vector (some local landmark with a funny name)…” I don’t think the new wrinkle of mirrors is going to breathe life into the crumbled-into-dust body of a turn-signal joke. The toll joke, I think, can only be funny if you put the rant into the mouth of a foil and make the punch line that the ranter is an even worse abuser because he expects change (exaggerate: make it change for a hundred) at a toll booth. Segue into a riff about how his bulging wallet led people to suspect ass cancer, or his tried to use back pain as an excuse for spending the excess dollars at a strip club, and then you’re out of the bit and onto something else. Good luck!
I have a theory about the OP, but to cover the bases I’ll first respond to it straight.
“Yield” does mean “stop” if proceeding would take a driver into the path of any other vehicle or pedestrian, forcing them to alter direction or speed. It would take a much longer separate merge lane than is common to do this while maintaining highway speeds. The purpose of the sign is not to enhance the speed with which traffic merges: it is to make clear the priority assigned to each merging stream. You are a droplet in the lesser of the two streams. You wait for the other guys until there are no other guys close enough for you to impede or interfere with. “Yield” is an almost perfectly antithetical concept to the “blending in with traffic by taking your chances at a good forty or fifty MPH” theory of driving. In fact, “yield” has little truck with the whole notion of blending in. Your lot when faced by a yield sign is not to join the traffic on the road you are about to use, it is to watch it go by and resume your own progress after it has passed. Yield signs are red because that is the color reserved for regulatory signs, which require attention and obedience. They are not green because they are not guide signs indicating locations and distances to places of interest, which are ignored by drivers who don’t need them. They are not commonly mistaken for martinis because they lack olive, lemon twist, or onion (for the Gibson-oriented driver), and they are not oriented flat-side down in order that they not be mistaken for a liquibid decongestant tablet.
The toll-takers who irritate you are only there because of drivers who do not carry exact change for tolls, even though someone who can routinely blow through a yield sign at 50 and isn’t dead yet could probably be expected to know about such things as tolls in advance. I will refrain from commenting on the philosophical perspective that decries the delay caused by the car in front of him asking directions or exchanging a pleasantry as “social hour” and yet finds room in its day for the same toll-taker to count out nineteen dollars and fifty cents in change.
Now, for an answer based on my theory about the OP:
Depending on how tough your local open-mike night is, I’d rate the routine as slightly better than average. The real problem with it is that since the subject itself is so well-used, it doesn’t much matter how fresh the material is: the crowd will think it has heard it before. So you’re not going to get credit for much originality. Other than that, I think you’re onto something with the sign-color riff, but you should expand it. Work up a routine about how signs seem designed to cause bad driving. They’re red, which means danger, and who drives their best in a constant state of anxiety? It’s the same color they’ll use if there’s a terrorist with a bomb in your back seat. It’s also the color they graded your driving test in when you failed it. Also, they use poorly-chosen words. “Stop” is clear enough. But “yield?” Who besides the guys who paint yield signs ever uses this word? If you look it up in the dictionary you find out it means “surrender.” So driving is scary dangerous, and you should just give up. I’d lose the Shawshank reference – too old, and you don’t get much for it. The aircraft carrier line could be funny if you reconstruct it as a story about you having to take off from a standing start, and put the audience in the car with you in the cockpit: “BTS to tower, request clearance…vector (some local landmark with a funny name)…” I don’t think the new wrinkle of mirrors is going to breathe life into the crumbled-into-dust body of a turn-signal joke. The toll joke, I think, can only be funny if you put the rant into the mouth of a foil and make the punch line that the ranter is an even worse abuser because he expects change (exaggerate: make it change for a hundred) at a toll booth. Segue into a riff about how his bulging wallet led people to suspect ass cancer, or he tried to use back pain as an excuse for spending the excess dollars at a strip club, and then you’re out of the bit and onto something else. Good luck!
Two-way stops signs should be replaced with yield signs.
I take the highway every day.
The toll is $.50 EVERY DAY.
I know I’ll have to pay the toll tomorrow.
(lightbulb appears over my head)
I’ll get change tonight so that I won’t hold up all the people behind me.
If I do pay with a $20.00,
I realize that my change is all singles since no one else was inconsiderate enough to pay with big bills.
I’m the only asshole today.
I realize that now I’m the one holding up the line while my change is being made.
And that someone is pitting me for the “social hour” I’ve created.
I decide to get an EZ pass to end the madness.
Yield means “prepare to stop if necessary, because you don’t have right of way.” I don’t expect anyone to be stupid enough to approach a Yield sign at 60 mph
No. Not one of my favorite references, but a reference to one of my favorite movies.
It wouldn’t make any difference around here. Stop signs are already treated as yield signs.
Why the hell would you shoot a dog? Shoot the damned wrong number callers OR the damn toll takers instead!
It just so happens that my relative, Clinton E. Riggs, invented the Yield sign. No, I am not kidding and we are all very proud of his achievments do Fucko off.
Black Train Song, if you really aren’t capable of successfully bringing a car up to highway speed from a complete stop, I suggest you stay away from my city. You see, we have a few on-ramps with Stop signs at the ends of them. On one of them, the lane you merge into after stopping at the Stop sign becomes an exit only ramp within a few hundred feet/meters of the end of the on ramp. Very shortly after that, the interstate goes through a tunnel. I can assure that it is possible to get onto the freeway after coming to a complete stop, into the middle lane, and up to highway speed in the time and space allowed. I know because I used to do this regularly in a 3-cylinder Geo Metro. I admit the first couple of times, my attitude was, to paraphrase Lanier in Babylon 5, “Press the accelerator and pray real hard,” but it is possible.
Look, given a choice, I’ll accelerate on an on ramp, hit the end of it at highway speed and make a nice smooth transition. I’ve been known to mutter under my breath at folks who are travelling 20 mph slower than traffic on the freeway’s moving as they get to the end of the ramp myself a few times, and I know someone who’s passed someone on an on-ramp. I also know a ramp where traffic is usually too dense and moving too quickly in the slow lane at rush hour for there to be much in the way of a gap at the point where a certain on-ramp enters it. I’ve seen people stopped at the end of it and I’ve felt sorry for them, but there’s simply no room for them to merge in because less than 1/4 mile after that there’s the off ramp for a town with a few major shopping centers and people are in position to get off there.
I’d prefer not to stop at the end of an on ramp, but, if I need to I will, whether it’s because there’s a Stop sign there or because my forcing my way into a gap which isn’t big enough for my car will only make bad traffic worse. Squealing brakes isn’t my kind of music.
CJ
Alright alrigh alriight already! When did Clinton R Riggs invent the yield sign? Was it when the Flinstones were still using their feet as propulsion?
I understand that the technicalities are not on my side for gods sake. When it boils down the issue is not time, it’s the indecisiveness of other drivers. When conditions permit a whole slew of cars to enter the highway and everyone but the car in front is preparing for a smooth entrance it sucks. Somehow that guy got in front. He probably has EZ pass. Anyway, now he’s dicking around and nobody knows what the fuck to do. We gotta watch this asshole. I always wait there patiently, while usually the cars behind me give up on the poor fucker and start onto the highway without him. Don’t tell me you’ve never seen this shit. It’s grounds for the electric chair.
About the tolls, I usually do have exact change and my fare is $150. to be exact. I will not back down on this. It’s not my fault that this guy chooses to give me all ones while his drawer sits stuffed with five and ten dollar bills. “Happy hour” is when I’m sitting back there and he and the occupants are deeply engrossed in a conversation. Arms are flailing, the toll guy is giggling and the driver hasn’t even begun to get his money out. I don’t blame the toll taker because he thinks somebody actually likes him dispite his apparent lack of personality. And fuck Clinton R Riggs with the large flat side of a yiel sign!
Ooh, make that $1.50
They gave all the fives and tens to the driver ahead of you who paid with a hundred.
What’s wrong with metering lights? They do improve traffic flow on the interstate. And, like in Siege’s case, you learn the proper speed to merge very quickly.
My gripe, on city streets, is about the clowns who seem to think that yield means the traffic on the main road yields to them. If I’m on the main road, I don’t want to be hitting my brakes because some clown couldn’t be bothered to stop until I passed by. It’s how accidents happen. And there is no issue accelerating on these streets, and usually pleny of room after me.
As for yields at stop - I’ve got one right in front of my house, and if I had a dime for every person who thinks that stopping is slowing to 10 mph, I’d be able to afford to buy a 1920’s style death ray to take care of the problem for good.
The more I google this, the more I smell an urban-myth rat. Introduced the concept of the Yield sign, that I can believe. Standardised the design, sure. But there’s pre-war examples of British ‘give way’ signs which are clear predecessors of the familiar shape.
Its always about the British isn’t it? Inventing something like that is all about standardizng it and working out a replicable concept. That is really all there is. Inventing a “Yield” “sign” requires having a “sign” with “Yield” on it for the purpose it is now known.
Clinton Riggs is from my mother’s side and family members always mentioned that achievement when I was growing up. It wasn’t until the web got developed that I knew all the details. It was a while ago.
Nah, its’ a silly idea. Everyone knows that a car on a treadmill would take off.
Damn. You got me pegged. I picked a hatchback to symbolize my itty bitty dick and my feelings of inferiority to everyone. Now you Mr. Sport-Ultityerson, you have a massive cervix lance. You probably have a squire just to fluff you pre-coitus.
Its’ less about feeling inferior and more about not causing an accident and getting railed by several insurance companies. Not to mention to whole becoming a cripple thing.
Except that “rolling stops” wouldn’t be illegal anymore