I’ve had this happen to me twice today and it’s only 2:00PM:
Construction worker guy responsible for holding the sign that flips between “Stop” and “Slow” is standing on the sidewalk (1st time) or on the side of the road (2nd time) and is holding the sign without one side or the other showing towards me so it looks like he’s holding a pole. That is… if I see him at all. As I said, neither one of these guys were out in the street. They were both well off to the side.
Then, you guessed it, as soon as I pull up on the sign holders, they flip the sign around for no apparent reason other than the fact that I arrived on the scene. No cars coming the other way and nothing in the middle of the road. Not even the road sign worker guy who is supposed to be out there to stop traffic.
I’ve always thought flipping the “Stop - Slow” sign around must be a pretty good job. They probably only put the really smart guys on that detail. People’s lives depend on it.
When I used to be one of the other guys lifting the heavy stuff and digging the holes out there, I was jealous as hell of the guy that gets to stand there all day (in the middle of the road) and flip the sign.
If you are lucky enough to be one of the sign flipping guys, take some pride in your work. Stand right smack in the middle of the damn road in all your brillant blaze orange and waive that sign like your life depends on it because it does. My life depends on it, too and I can’t see you when you’re standing on the sidewalk or over in the ditch. And I sure as hell can’t see you when you’ve got the friggin‘ thing turned sideways.
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just the other day, on the road, i drove to a construction area with two sign holders. Each sign holder mans one end of the construction area and they communicate with one another so that their signs always agree.
It’s hard to make sure the signs agree when one dude is chit chatting with some person on his cellphone. So when I see the first sign “SLOW” and then off in the distance a sign for “STOP” I get a little hesitant in my decision of whom to obey since I’m sure they’re both really devoted to their jobs.
It’s bad when you’re proof-reading the sign holders.