Cryptic Street Sign Leaves Local Motorist Baffled
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A local man struggled to decipher a bizarre street sign yesterday, Dumb Runner has learned, pondering its meaning as he drove through a stop light to make a right turn.
Terry Francona, 39, encountered the inscrutable message while driving downtown, catching a glimpse as he navigated a busy intersection. The stark white sign, roughly 18 x 24 inches in size, bore a large red dot and the shapes N, O, T, U, R, E, and D, in all caps; some of those shapes appeared more than once.
“What the hell,” Francona muttered as he steered around the corner. “Red circle?”
“Huh?” he added.
Sources said the avid motorist nearly hit two pedestrians in the crosswalk as he executed his turn.
“One of them yelled, ‘Dude!’ and the other pointed at the sign and said, ‘No turn on red!’,” according to one witness. “His windows were up, though, so I don’t think he even noticed them.”
“In fairness, (Francona) also had his phone in his hand, so he was probably distracted by that.”
City officials told Dumb Runner the sign in question is a fairly common one at busy intersections.
“The letters spell ‘no turn on red,’” said a spokesperson for the city’s department of transportation. “That’s a phrase meaning ‘no turn on red.’”
“Which means drivers are prohibited from turning on red.”
And the red dot?
“The red dot represents a red light,” they said. “To indicate stopping.”
Told later of the sign’s meaning, in a phone call from Dumb Runner, Francona remained bemused.
“Red means stop?” he said. “Since when?”
