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Are Okies really just that dumb?
When I was driving back yesterday and I entered Oklahoma, I saw a sign that I have seen many times, and again asked myself, "What does that really mean?" The sign said: Do not drive into smoke. So, here are the questions that go through my mind when I read this.
- If there is smoke from a far off fire (like there was last night), what am I supposed to do? Stop on the side of the turnpike immediately??? Turn around on the turnpike??? Get all of the other drivers to stop until the smoke clears???
- If the car in front of me is emitting smoke from its exhaust pipe, should I just drive the minimum speed limit until there is clean air between me and this car? Generally these cars aren't going much over the minimum speed limit anyway; what then?
Seriously, are Okies really so dumb that they have to post this sign all along the turnpike? I have not travelled too much, but I have never seen this sign in any other state. How is this sign protecting people? If a person really is so dumb as to drive into thick, black smoke and then ultimately through a fire, maybe that person shouldn't have a driver's license to begin with. Most likely that person wouldn't be able to read the sign on the side of the road anyway (was that too harsh?). I really would like to understand the purpose and/or history of these signs.
posted by Becky Davis | 12:04 PM
3 Comments:
When I lived in Oklahoma, I, too, wondered about these signs. Mostly I wondered what kind of smoke they were talking about and why you couldn't drive through it. In Florida, if there's a fire that is endangering drivers, they just close the road. Doesn't that seem like the logical response? Have that many people actually been killed or injured by driving into smoke?
"Are Okies really just that dumb?" Um, is this a rhetorical question???
I always thought the smoke referred to tornadoes, which is why, I assumed, we didn't have signs like that in Michigan. But your concerns are quite valid. (You get funnier the longer I know you. I mean that in the best way possible, of course.)
So one of my colleagues called me Friday as he was driving to OKC. Among the other things he mentioned, he informed me that he had driven through two fires on his way out of town, using the words, "So I just drove through the smoke."
And then I started thinking about the wind and the burn bans we often have. And then it started making more sense that the signs really did refer to fire.
But still, like you said, what is a person to do? Just STOP on the turnpike?
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