I think there are too many signs along the roadside. As a motorist it’s distracting to be confronted by a plethora of signs saying very little of importance.
There are advertising signs, entry signs, information signs, road signs and stupid signs.
I plan to count the signs between Porepunkah and Eurobin (9km) and I’ll be surprised if there aren’t at least 50.
Governments are to blame for this. Most of the signs belong to them or one of their agencies. The advertising signs should be regulated by them.
Tourist signs are a good example of signs gone mad. Without any fanfare or explanation a series of brown signs have sprung up across North East Victoria proclaiming things like “Golden Heritage Drive” and “Mount Buffalo Drive”.
Some genius in a marketing department somewhere probably coined these phrases, or more likely a consultant was paid tens of thousands of dollars to come up with them.
Having paid the genius or the consulting firm, a government department felt a need to justify the expenditure by spending more money on these silly signs.
They are presumably part of tourism loops, which haven’t yet been promoted and probably don’t need to exist. They just add to roadside clutter.
Today I was driving Kathleen to a friend’s house at Eurobin and we passed a billboard that said “Powdernap” in large letters, with an indecipherable catchphrase underneath. I assumed the sign meant to say “Powernap” and mused to myself about how much money was being wasted to pay someone who can’t spell. Anger subsided to despair. Australia is supposed to be a first world nation, but we erect road signs with spelling mistakes!
On the way back I saw the other side of the sign, which read in large letters “Snow down”. Okay, I get it now, do you? The sign was made to caution people speeding to the skifields.
I don’t think it’s clever though. It wasted half an hour of my valuable and diminishing mental capacity, not to mention the time writing this blog. Signs are meant to inform, not stimulate. There are too many signs … have I said that already?
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