Rules of the Road

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
It really couldn't be any clearer.

In fiction, road signs mean exactly what they say.

If the speed limit sign says 250, you had better be doing 250. If a yellow caution sign warns of an impenetrable snarl of an intersection, a 360-degree vertical loop, or a moose, guess what you're about to see?

Further, any law-enforcement along the road will measure your performance according to the road signs (no matter how ludicrous, and even if they've been recently vandalized) and praise or punish you accordingly.

Often a version of a Visual Pun. See also Can't You Read The Sign.

In a rare aversion people who are either Genre Savvy or extremely horror-movie tier violent will disregard or kill the Too Dumb to Live people who are enforcing idiotically vandalised signs. Often leads to jokes regarding the "Slow Children Playing" sign.

Examples of Rules of the Road include:

Film

  • Pee-wee's Big Adventure has a series of signs of upcoming curves, each increasingly twisty and ridiculous. Followed by falling rocks.
  • One of the Cannonball Run films showed a racer sticking numbers to a speed limit sign, changing it from 55 mph to 155 mph
    • They were driving a Lamborghini. So yeah...
  • The Muppet Movie has a map that says that there's a fork in the road. Sure, the road branches into two, but there's also a GIANT fork in the road! (which is apparently a real landmark)

Kermit: Hey Fozzie, I want you to turn left if you come to a fork in the road.
Fozzie: Yessir, turn left at the fork in the road... Kermit!
[They literally turn at a giant fork in the road]
Kermit: I don't believe it.


Literature

  • Invoked in the short story "Absolute Limits", in which frustrated government scientists note that everyone on the highway always breaks the speed limit—so they have the speed limit on that stretch set to the speed of light.


Live Action Television

  • Red Dwarf has some fun with these. Rimmer quizzes Kryten on these while trying to get him certified for piloting a shuttle. Keep in mind this is taking place a few months shy of three million years away from Earth..
  • The 'Tank Crossing' sign below was shown once in an episode of Home Improvement. For some reason, it was on the tank's road and not the cart path it crossed.


Music Videos

  • In the video for the Gorillaz song "19/2000", the band comes upon a sign in the road depicting an irate moose. You shouldn't be surprised when the camera pans up to show a moose, but you might be surprised that it's hundreds of feet tall.


Newspaper Comics


Video Games

  • In Gokujou Parodius (Ultimate Parodius), the highway-esque stage features plenty of yellow caution signs, mostly to indicate how the enemies are going to move. At one point, there is a caution sign for falling rocks, followed by falling rocks. Then there is a caution sign for moose, followed by falling moose. Then there is a caution sign with an exclamation point, followed by falling exclamation points...
  • Subverted in the Sam and Max episodes. They remark the "One way" sign outside their office is the "least obeyed street sign in the country".
  • The next-to-final dungeon in Persona 4 has "Shadow Crossing" signs strewn all over it, and you had better believe there are a ton of them.


Web Original

Western Animation

  • In the obligatory Wacky Races-styled episode of The Wuzzles, one of Crock's myriad (backfiring) attempts to cheat involves doctoring an ordinary "Speed Limit 55 MPH" sign to read "Speed Limit 155 MPH". Rhinokey sees the sign and dutifully obeys it, but when Crock and his goons try to follow, traffic cop Eagle Beagle gives them a ticket for driving too slow.
    • Special note: this would fall under Genre Blind, too. The scheme was to get Rhinokey arrested for speeding.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants once featured a characteristically bizarre version in which the signs announced "killer clams", "cheese graters" and, horror of horrors, "EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION".
  • In Wacky Races, many of the times Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat, it involves him flipping a directional sign so the arrow points in the other direction. Or he yanks a real road sign out of the ground so the others will miss the turn, or changes a 35 mph speed limit sign to read 85 mph. This one is oft imitated in other cartoons where there's Wacky Racing.
  • In the opening credits of I Am Weasel, Weasel's driving a convertible with a hot blonde. But he passes a road sign that reads "LOGO". He leaps out of the car in the direction the sign indicates, and jumps into the logo for the show.
  • This was a favorite gag of Tex Avery. If a character passed a "Fork ahead" sign, he would then bump into a giant fork sticking out of the ground. A "Hairpin turn" sign would indicate that the road would look exactly like a hairpin. And when characters stop at a school crossing, what should cross the road but a schoolhouse on two legs.
  • Wile E. Coyote would frequently attempt to utilize these in his pursuit of the Road Runner. Unfortunately for him, Road Runners can't read.
  • One of the Freaky Stories shorts involves an incredibly picky police officer, who expects everyone to follow traffic laws EXACTLY. Naturally, once he acquires a Speed Gun, he begins pulling people over for even going 1 Km/h faster/slower than the posted speed limit.
  • Rocko's Modern Life did this with "Cheese Crossing" and "Slow Children Playing" signs.


Truth in Television

  • Real Life example: Dead Man's Curve, on I-90 in Cleveland, Ohio. Several large signs showing a sharp 90-degree-turn arrow, and signs all but screaming for you to slow down to 35...leading up to one of the sharpest curves on an Interstate highway.
  • There are also signs in Real Life that warn of speed bumps. They often simply read BUMP, or sometimes HUMP AHEAD.
    • Travel tip- when the State of Vermont puts a sign up saying FROST HEAVE, the frost heave will be much larger than average.
    • In Mexico, the signs read "TOPE" and may have a picture of the device. They tend to be very large and very steep, often enough to damage a car going much faster than 20 MPH. Residents of rural areas may build their own by felling trees.
  • And signs which read "Do not back up. SEVERE TIRE DAMAGE". They are not kidding.
  • Speed limits in general - it is considered good etiquette to drive as close to the speed limit as conditions allow.
  • The Brits have tank crossings.
  • Similarly, the magic roundabout. It is a massive roundabout made of six overlapping roundabouts. What you see is what you get.
  • Approaching Denver from the west on I-70 are several signs warning about the steep grades and sharp curves. They all have huge letters and start with "DON'T BE FOOLED" and "TRUCKERS, YOU ARE NOT DOWN YET."
  • In Norway they have troll crossings.
  • In Duarte, California there is a nun crossing sign.
  • Inverted (presumably) in certain signs warning of sharp curves that may cause a truck to overturn. For some reason, the arrow on these signs always appears to indicate that trucks may spontaneously right themselves.
  • "Alligator Alley" (State Road 84 in Florida) has several signs warning drivers to WATCH FOR ALLIGATORS. and brother, you'd better damned well be watching for alligators. The road is four lanes with little to no shoulder that cross through the middle of the Everglades, and alligators can regularly be found sunning themselves in the middle of the road.
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