I’m talking about road signs and the like, not Death cards and banshees.
In the basement of the building I work in, there is a blue light with a sign under it. The post says, “Light Flashing Indicates Low Oxygen Levels. Leave Immediately.” It makes going to the mailroom everyday seem like Russian Roulette!
Since my grandfather worked in a prison, and I past a county jail on the way to work, I have seen this sign many times: “Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers Beyond This Point. They May Be Escaped Convicts.” And I think, Does he have a hook for a hand?
The Sepulveda Tunnel that ducks under two of the runways at LAX has an electric sign at either entrance, that I’ve never seen lit–DANGER: GAS. DO NOT ENTER.
What would I do if I’m just driving along and I don’t have time to stop or change my course? Just hold my breath until I make it through? It is semi-submerged, so if one of those refrigerated liquid CO2 trucks somehow spilled its load, I suppose there could be a suffocating layer of carbon dioxide in that tunnel.
Visiting San Francisco, and walking along the shoreline in the general vicinity of the Golden Gate Bridge. There were multiple signs posted at the top of the bluffs not only warning of the danger, but explicitly stating that people have fallen to their deaths, etc.
There are countless road signs (usually of the tight curve speed advisory type) around here that are scary not in their wording, but in that they’re surrounded by skid marks or are crunched-up, and deserving of a piggy-back sign reading “WE MEAN IT!”
I once noticed a warning label on some chainsaw-type device that pictured a stick figure who seemed to have decided to ride the chainsaw blade part like a pony. It had an X through it, just in case you were considering that.
Also, the beach signs in Hawaii were a little alarming - they all had huge waves on them with little surfers falling to their deaths.
In a town not too far from here, there’s a road called “Nigger Ridge Rd.” They have a new street sign for it. It’s scary to think there’s a whole town that thinks not only is it okay to not change the name of the road, but it’s worthy of a nice new sign.
Driving south from the Trans-Canada Highway in the southeast corner of Alberta, we were following Highway 41 (I think) through a mostly-unpopulated area. The only things in front of us were the gradually-narrowing road and the prairie, which extended to the horizon.
After a time we came to a sign: NO SERVICES OR RESIDENCES NEXT 137 KM.
If you broke down in winter on that road, you would die.
Near the border checkpoint between San Diego and LA there are yellow caution signs depicting the silhouettes of a family of illegal immigrants fleeing across the freeway. I’ve always found those a bit creepy, but I suppose they serve a purpose.
Oooh. I thought of another one. There was a beach we used to go to up near Point Reyes that had signs warning potential swimmers about “sneaker waves”, which apparently are unexpectedly large waves that appear out of nowhere and sweep you out to sea. Oh, and also great white sharks.
National Parks can have some good and scary ones. I recall the graphic “this steam vent will boil you alive” ones in Yellowstone, and the “little stick figure plunging to his death” all around the Grand Canyon.
At a hospital where I used to work, there was a door with a window. The lettering on the window read “Danger: Infectious diseases.” Through the window you could see the door to the only men’s room on the floor.
There was a sign like that back in the mid-1970s, I think it was on I-84 between Snowville, Utah, and Rupert, Idaho. There were signs in both towns, “No Services for 96 Miles” along with lots of other signs to “Gas Up Now” and so on. It was pretty scary when my bride and I drove up to Kennewick, Wash., in 1973; even scarier a year later driving back, what with the oil embargo and all.
I’m curious if there was anything else on the sign to indicate that it meant to represent illegal aliens. I’ve seen similar signs to what you describe all over the country and just took them to mean to be careful because pedestrians might be present.
Academics, imagine the Three Stooges with grant money and volatile chemicals.
I was once responsible for a very pricey and sensitive piece of equipment. It seemed like *every time * I left the room, someone would come around and mess this thing up. One day, I placed a sign on it that said, “Do NOT operate if you have a capital-rectal orientation issue.” It took a couple of days before Iwas asked to take it down.
:eek:
