# Why do people shoot traffic signs? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 30, 2004, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-shoot-traffic-signs/226823 "2004-01-30T20:41:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2004, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-shoot-traffic-signs/226823/21 "2004-01-31T20:44:44Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Dude. They don’t move very fast and they are always in season. Why **wouldn’t** we shoot them? > > Dang. > > Damn Yankees always coming down here and challenging our Suthren Ways. I just want to point out that **silenus** is from **Southern California**. I’ve heard that there was a lot of bad blood between Northern California and Southern California, but never that those in the south called those in the north **Yankees**. ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2004, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-shoot-traffic-signs/226823/22 "2004-01-31T21:00:49Z")
Out in our rural neck of the woods, I’ve seen several mailboxes encased in little brick houses. I imagine that works as well as concrete. Our mailbox is a giant steel behemoth that has been here since the original house back when Mr. S was a kid in the 1950s. It has one dent in it from a snowplow or something, but other than that it’s quite heavy and solid, not like the wimpy aluminum ones you can buy today. If someone were to take a baseball bat to it, I imagine the result would be something like the guy who tried to take a crowbar to Christopher Reeve in _Superman._ ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2004, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-shoot-traffic-signs/226823/23 "2004-01-31T23:55:17Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > On that topic, is it (still) a felony and federal offense to destroy a mailbox? Or is this a UL? Damaging mailboxes is a federal offense with a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine (Title 18, United Stated Code, Section 1705). :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2004, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-shoot-traffic-signs/226823/24 "2004-02-01T05:48:15Z")
> [@Hunter Hawk](#): > > One way I’ve seen this addressed is to get a large mailbox and a small mailbox. Take the door off the small one, suspend it (the door-less small mailbox) inside the large one, and fill the gap with concrete. Then mount the reinforced box to a section of telephone pole. Vandals can still take out the flag and door if they really want to, but that’s not as much fun as bashing in the whole thing. And, with any luck, if they happen to be swinging a bat from a moving car they’ll get a nasty reverberatory shock and maybe even a broken arm. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2004, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-shoot-traffic-signs/226823/25 "2004-02-01T07:35:14Z")
To give a serious answer to the OP (not that all the other answers haven’t been entertaining), I understand that hunters use signs to adjust the sights on their rifles. Specifically, they shoot the sign to see how good the sights are adjusted. Then adjust the sights and shoot again until adjustment is good. You need a flat target for that and it’s easier to use an already mounted road sign than to put one up oneself. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2004, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-shoot-traffic-signs/226823/26 "2004-02-01T15:27:12Z")
> [@](#): > > To give a serious answer to the OP (not that all the other answers haven’t been entertaining), I understand that hunters use signs to adjust the sights on their rifles. Specifically, they shoot the sign to see how good the sights are adjusted. Then adjust the sights and shoot again until adjustment is good. You need a flat target for that and it’s easier to use an already mounted road sign than to put one up oneself. Ehhh, no. Serious hunters do not shoot at signs to site in a rifle. No way, no how. They use a thing called ‘targets’ and go to a place called a ‘range’. Signs are shot by idiots that have no idea how to safely handle a fire arm. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2004, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-shoot-traffic-signs/226823/27 "2004-02-01T16:09:08Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > Signs are shot by idiots that have no idea how to safely handle a fire arm. This has all been great fun. Especially this little gem. 😉 I have a perfect safety record. I have never shot anyone or anything **by accident.** ---
**Author:** ![LemonThrower](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d2c977/32.png) [@LemonThrower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LemonThrower)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2004, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-shoot-traffic-signs/226823/28 "2004-02-01T17:15:35Z")
I think the key to fortifying your mailbox, besides using steel and concrete, is to disguise its appearance so it appears as fragile as ever. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2004, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-shoot-traffic-signs/226823/29 "2004-02-01T18:47:57Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > Signs are shot by idiots that have no idea how to safely handle a fire arm. > > > [@GusNSpot](#): > > > > This has all been great fun. Especially this little gem. 😉 > > > > I have a perfect safety record. I have never shot anyone or anything **by accident.** ehh? ‘little gem’. I’m not sure what you are trying to say here. I guess, and hope you are joking. And I will stand by my statement that people that shoot signs are idiots. Aside from the danger it presents, it is destroying public property. Anyone that shoots signs should not be in possession of a fire arm. They aren’t bright enough to use it. Simple fact. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2004, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-shoot-traffic-signs/226823/30 "2004-02-01T22:50:32Z")
I don’t condone the following (but it is bloody funny): My brother is a ranger for a local council in the mountains west of Sydney. He got a call one day to drive out along the highway a bit to where the state govt had installed the mother of all speed cameras. Not the normal little box ten feet up a pole, but a huge thing on a thirty foot pole which looked across the entire valley. My bro gets out there and starts laughing his tits off ( not in an official capacity), and calls the cops who come out and start giggling too: the thirty foot pole with the big metal box on top was now a thirty foot pole with wires and springs coming out of it. The local lads had taken it upon themselves to blast the living bejeezers out of it with gawd knows what. Both barrels of several twelve gauge shotguns? Who knows, but after most of the locals had been burned by the camera’s fines (it was located on a long downhill grade with perfect visibility, and an unrealistic speed limit), nobody seemed to mind. ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-shoot-traffic-signs/226823/31 "2004-02-02T11:59:55Z")
- - - Really I think as the US goes, _Michigan_ is the bullet-ridden roadsign capital of the USA. ~ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-shoot-traffic-signs/226823.md?page=1)