This is what a speed limit sign looks like in Oregon. Trouble is, it's missing a word.
White road signs explain rules and regulations. And the most famous rule sign: Speed limits.
As much I like to think of speed limits as being a suggestion.
That guy gets it. He's treating it like a suggestion.
If I'm driving and I choose to ignore a white sign, I could end up with a ticket.
(On the phone:) "Seventy seven is not speeding! You should have seen how fast I
was going on my way up there. I mean, don't worry about it. I'll just pay the ticket."
That's true for every white road sign. These are legally enforceable rules. A
fun literary device is to make a sentence. Add this to the end of the sign's name.
So you have: "speed limit 40" or else you could get a ticket.
"Stop on read" or else you might get a ticket. "Buses only" or else you might get a ticket.
"No left or U-turn" or else you might get a ticket.
We empower police officers to enforce white signs, so everybody can move the same way.
Kind of like dance choreography. We stay light on our feet when traffic rules are uniform.
The goal is not to trick people into tickets, it's to get people to follow the signs.
And it becomes a lot easier when the signs mean the same thing,
city to city and state to state. Check out this no parking sign.
It's white, so I legally have to follow it. Which legally, if I parked here, I'd have to
pay the ticket, right? Engineers everywhere in America rely on this federal manual.
It gives guidance on what sign should look like and where construction crews should install them.
Except this sign doesn't appear anywhere in the manual. How do I know this isn't a pirate sign?
And people are writing me a pirate ticket? Because I don't want to get scammed.
When a driver identifies a sign quickly, they're more likely to follow that rule.
Look at this cute little art project here. You got the picture of the truck saying "no trucks
over three tons." The only problem is, the person driving the three ton truck down the
street of 50 miles-an-hour isn't going to readily recognize this non-compliant sign.
So they're going to go down the street anyway. A lose-lose for the city as well.
A judge might feel kinda sympathetic and throw out a ticket when they see a non-compliant sign.
Judge: "A blue stop sign? And it's not even spelled right! Case dismissed!".
Strict uniformity, also applies to speed limit signs.
For instance, the signs must be in multiples of five miles per hour.
So none of this. So, how does Oregon
get away with the speed limit sign that doesn't even say "limit"?
It turns out only these states actually follow that manual. Some states, like Texas
and California, have their own manual. It's pretty close, but California's literally crosses out some
signs and replaces them with state versions. These states, including Oregon, use a state
supplement. Minor changes to comply with state laws. And that's where Oregon's speed signs began.
Back in 1931, Oregon established a "basic speed law."
Forty-five miles per hour on the open highway. And even if you drive a little bit faster than that,
there's no need to feel guilty. Legally, motorists could drive
any speed that was "reasonable and prudent". Before 1940, some worried this was creating
an impression that Oregon had no speed limit. In 1941, the Legislature recommended
certain speeds for certain types of roads. But again, these were not absolute speed
limits. People kept pushing for a fixed speed limit, but it just wouldn't happen.
So in the state's version of the road sign manual, the word limit was banned.
Which meant "speed" signs everywhere. And then— the 1970s.
(radio static) The U.S. supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War.
OPEC imposed an oil embargo. That meant a fuel crisis.
And President Nixon signed a national speed limit of 55 miles-per-hour.
For the first time. Oregon Highways had a fixed speed limit.
But it would cost a lot of money to change out all the signs on the freeways to say
"speed limit 55," so they left it. In the half century since then,
Oregon added more and more fixed speed limits. Nowadays, the basic speed law is basically dead.
But the signs have remained. Only very recently has the Oregon sign manual struck that ban on the
word "limit." Conventional speed limit signs are becoming more and more common across the state.
Speed limit signs and white regulatory signs are just one of many colors of
signs on the road. To learn more about how engineers make all road signs look the same,
coast to coast, click the video on the right side of the screen.