a speed limit sign with buildings in the background
Musings

The most bizarre speed limit sign I’ve ever seen

I was driving around Colorado Springs over the weekend and stopped by this road sign at a shopping centre.

Road signBeing British and living in The Netherlands makes me fairly fluent in both imperial and metric units, especially when it comes to distances. But the above sign fascinates me as I've never seen a decimal point on any speed limits. Converting 8.2mph into other units, it equates to the following:

  • 13.2 km/h
  • 3.7 m/s
  • 4.0 yards/s
  • 12.0 ft/s

My guess is the sign was created for 12 ft/s, though it does make me wonder why they didn't just put 10mph or even 8mph? I also think a driver wouldn't be able to judge that he/she is travelling at that speed unless he's looking out of the side window (not even forward window) as it's hard to perceive such small distances when looking over your bonnet.

I'm especially curious about how they would go about enforcing this limit too!

Do you have any other examples of odd road signs from your travels? Send them into info (a) pointstobemade.com and I'll post up the most interesting ones

 

9 Comments

  1. I saw a curve sign that said speed limit 27 mph. When I inquired they said if they had said 25 mph people would have thought this was a rough estimate of the speed you could take the turn. Similarly if they had said 30 mph. By saying 27 which was so odd and exact people thought they had exactly computer the curve velocity and they obeyed it

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