Maryland--Here's your signs!

I travelled into Maryland last week for a training session. I must say that I love driving through Maryland because the road signs are always amusing to me. There is no pussy-footing around for the Maryland sign makers. They are not afraid to use all caps, different colors, and brevity to get their message across to drivers.
You will have to forgive the lighting and angles in the pictures below. When you are driving, you can't stop in the middle of the road to frame a shot. In Maryland, you can't drive and use a hand-held cellphone either. I wonder what they would say about a camera?
Anyway, I left my house at 5:30 in the morning and the sun was just coming up as I saw this sign. The sign says "ALTERNATE RIGHT OF WAY". Now this is what drivers should do in a merge zone, but this sign leaves no doubt about it.

A bit farther down the road, this sign appeared. "Form single lane NOW".

No wonder it seems that Maryland drivers seem a bit confused when they are in other states, the signs must seem like mere suggestions when you are used to imperative signs like this one. A recent poll does seem to indicate that Maryland drivers are less skilled than those in Virginia. Of course, if you ask Maryland drivers, they would say the same about Virginia drivers. One thing they seem to agree on is that DC drivers are the worst in the area.

Comments

CiteBlue

I have been enjoying participating in the MSU College of Law Social Media Contest . I have learned (and am still learning) a lot. Because of my activity, I have been able to connect with organizations and people that I would never have come across without social media. For this introvert, it has been like opening a whole new world. (I know, most people would never guess that I am an introvert; they probably just think that I am a snob. In social settings, I am a complete misfit, but put me in front of a classroom or conference room and I shine. It is strange, I know, but that is me. Perhaps we will dissect that in a different post). It has been interesting to see what posts attract followers. It has also been eye opening to figure out that followers also appear with an agenda--for example, some follow hoping to be followed in return to build their own group. This week, a company called CiteBlue "followed" me on Twitter. I wasn't familiar with the company, so I clicked o...

Queen of the Dairy

Did you know that the Dairy Queen Blizzard turned 25 last year? I remember when the Blizzard was introduced which makes me officially...old. Anyway, there was no Dairy Queen in the town where I grew up but there was one where my great grandfather lived. Do you remember when a trip longer than 15 minutes lasted fuh evah? When I was little, the 65 minute drive to my great grandfather's small town felt like an eternity. Maybe it felt so long because I was hoping for that extremely rare occurrence of a stop at the Dairy Queen. My parents were teachers and the budget was always tight, but occasionally we would stop at DQ and we could get a small cone. We never got to choose--it was always just that small vanilla cone, but it was a treat nonetheless. Once I was able to drive and had a job, those stops at DQ were almost mandatory when I ventured on my own to my grandparents house. I probably tried something different each time-...

What is that Binocular Button anyway?

Sometimes we get so busy doing our jobs that we fail to take the time to learn more about the tools that we use everyday. For alarm administrators, that tool is often CryWolf® or another similar program. Once I had discovered the Text Select tool, I began looking at other items on the tool bar. In doing so, I found that clicking on the Binocular Button at the top right of a report (red arrow to the left) opens a search box. This makes sense because the binocular button is officially called the Find Text tool. To find what you are looking for, simply enter the word or number that you want to locate in the "Find What:" box (blue arrow below). If you want to limit the search, click on the search parameters boxes (green arrow below). Click the Search button (red arrow below) and the magic begins. In no time at all, the results of the search will be displayed in the results box (circled in black below). Here, the sample shows that I searched for t...

The Edge of Empty

Search This Blog