There’s nothing more distracting for a motorist than having to pull over and protect yourself from zombie genitals, but at least a vandalized road sign cared enough to suggest what might work to do so.
On Monday, Matt Sweeting-Woods posted a video titled “modern vandalism” on Instagram.
It displayed a traffic sign in Ottawa’s Stittsville neighborhood that had been tampered with to display this advisement:
ZOMBIE D*CKS AHEAD!
PROTECT YOUR VAGINA
USE CONDOMS
According to Canada’s National Post, it’s not clear when the sign was messed with.
Sgt. Dan Berrea of the Ottawa police told the publication that police would open an investigation only if they received a complaint.
Note that we’re not saying the sign was hacked remotely.
Granted, the road sign likely wasn’t supposed to display messages about safe zombie sex.
The portable signs more typically display messages to inform drivers that an exit’s closed, or that there’s construction work ahead, rather than stating things like…
- Donald Trump is a shape-shifting lizard
- The more simple reference to “POOP”
- A warning about a British invasion
- A warning about an incursion of Daleks
- Zombies ahead
- A recommendation to Drive Crazy Y’all
Rather than being hacked remotely, it’s more likely that people got in to the control panel to manually mess with the messages on all those road signs.
In the case of the reptilian Republican message, put up on a road sign in June, Texas Department of Transportation’s Ryan LaFontaine said that the signs can’t be tampered with remotely:
You have to actually be there. Power it up and get in there and break the password.
“Break,” or maybe just “guess at,” or, then again, perhaps “find the spot where somebody scribbled it down”?
You’d think we’d all know better than to put passwords onto sticky notes or, say, scribble it onto a highway sign, but alas!
As LaFontaine pointed out, messing with these signs constitutes a serious crime. In the US, it’s a third-degree felony punishable with prison time.
And of course, for safety’s sake, we really do need to keep from distracting motorists.
Bryan
It’s been pondered before that signs of this nature just may elicit more alertness than the standard “caution: blah ahead” messages that find themselves disregarded under attention blindness.
though undead unmentionables may not just yet be a significant threat outside Ontario, the impending Canadian invasion is now imminent. :-)
jkwilborn
Probably the same 4 digit password on all of ’em. Or ‘nosoup4u’ :)
Pauline
That last recommendation should have read “Drive Crazy Y’all”
Anna Brading
Thanks Pauline. We’ve fixed that typo.