• Sometimes, road signs aren't as clear as they ought to be.
Sometimes they seem to be telling you to watch for airplanes before turning.
Sometimes it looks like they're prepping you for a cavity search.
Here are 15 of the most confusing signs you'll ever see on the road.
15 – Caution: Water on Road During Rain • Oh, yeah, okay, is that how it works?
When it rains, there's water?
• So when it rains on the road, there's water on the road?
Got it.
Enlightening stuff, there.
• Keep an eye out for the winter variant of this sign that says, “Snow on road during
snowstorm.” 14 – Surgery Parking Only – 5 Minute Limit
• First, let's try to think of a situation in which you park your car, walk into the
doctor's office, check yourself in, go under the knife, recover from the procedure and
then get back to your car in five minutes or less.
• Ok, have you imagined that scenario?
No, you haven't, because that's bullshit.
You'll spend 20 minutes in the waiting room alone.
• But let's pay particular attention to the fact that this place does EYE surgery.
So you're basically guaranteed to leave the facility temporarily blinded.
Best of luck!
13 – Cattle Crossing • Couple of problems with this.
Obviously, cattle aren't people, so we've got that.
• But actually, look at this road.
Isn't the other side of this road basically a swamp with high grass growing out of it?
How does anything actually cross here?
And why?
12 – Beware of Road Surprises • This just doesn't help at all.
It's like saying “expect the unexpected” or “threat level orange.”
• It gives you all of the anxiety, and none of the detail.
You don't know whether to expect a sharp turn, speed bump, or a clown running out in front
of your car.
11 – Left Turns and Airplanes • You know what?
Just leave it at “No left turn.”
Don't make a road sign that forces people to use their better judgement, because drivers
have terrible judgement.
• This is like putting up a sign that says, “Stop at this red light unless you're pretty
sure you can make it.”
10 – Physically Impossible Entry • If it's a physically impossible entry,
then you can't really call it an “entry” then, can you?
• At this point, isn't it more like a wall with a small gap in it?
Shouldn't you just call it a “dead end?”
• When you write it this way, it just sounds like a challenge.
That probably wasn't the intention.
9 – Speedo Check Ahead • Okay, the speedo joke writes itself here,
so let's just skip over that for now.
The actual purpose of this sign is to check the accuracy of your speedometer, which Australians
call a “speedo.”
• That's fine, but when's the last time anybody actually did that?
Isn't this just a bit too esoteric?
• What's the ratio of people who actually measure their speedometer accuracy versus
the people confused about what this sign means?
8 – Stop...
No, REALLY stop.
• Okay, so we know we're supposed to stop.
No ambiguity there.
• But THEN what?
You can't go forward or backward, and you can't make a left or right turn.
• Do you just stay there until the construction is finished?
How did you even get there in the first place?
7 – Lovers Lane is a Dead End • This is a dark commentary on the fate
of relationships.
And it's probably just a coincidence, but come on.
Who names their road “Lover's Lane,” anyway?
• You're just asking for trouble.
It's like calling your town “Pleasantville,” or having a country called “The Democratic
People's Republic of” something.
It's bound to be the exact opposite of what it says, just so the irony works out.
6 – Illiterate?
Don't be!
• This is just mean, and it might be a cruel joke.
• But it is a real sign that somebody put up, and they probably paid money to do it.
• That means either somebody paid a lot of money for a cruel joke, or a well-meaning
organization needs to re-think some things.
5 – Everything is Montreal • Let's give this the benefit of the doubt
for a second.
Obviously, each of these points to a different street.
We have Montreal Way, Montreal Avenue, and Montreal Circle.
• The question is, “why?”
This is in St. Paul, Minnesota, roughly 1,250 miles away from Montreal.
Who gives three streets almost identical names, and then connects them?
• Imagine getting directions as a visitor.
“You want to take Montreal down and then turn left on Montreal.
If you hit Montreal, you've gone too far.”
4 – Information Overload • If you stand here and stare at this for
a few minutes, it probably makes perfect sense.
• But you have to read this while driving by.
And that means you only have a few seconds to figure out which of 5 signs for highway
73 you need to follow.
• All of these signs point in the same two directions – straight, or left.
So why do you need 10 signs here if there's only two routes?
3 – Large Trucks Must Remain Upright • GVWR stands for Gross Vehicle Weight Rating,
so it's basically about how heavy the trucks are.
• This MIGHT mean that heavy trucks aren't allowed to do a U-turn?
• It kind of just looks like they're telling heavy trucks not to flip upside down.
Which...
well, yeah.
They'll probably try to do that.
2 – Right Lane Must Right Left • Have you ever been behind someone on the
highway who puts on their right turn signal, then cuts left across four lanes of traffic?
• That's probably what this is asking for.
1 – The Vaguest Sign Ever • The strangest thing is, this sign is oddly
specific about every detail, and yet noncommital on everything.
• If the road DOES close, they know exactly how it's going to happen.
But they have to leave that wiggle room just in case things don't go to plan.
• You have to wonder if putting up this sign was actually helpful, though.
Wouldn't it have been easier to just not say anything until that's figured out?
Okay, which of these signs is the most mind-numbing to you?
Leave your comment below and we'll pin our favorite to the top.