The traffic sign in "LA Story" was waaayyy more helpful

In yesterday's update I forgot to mention the ridiculousness I witnessed on the way up here Saturday. I discovered that the Illinois tollway is apparently run by idiots. Proof of this fact can be found in the traffic signs over the tollway that typically alert drivers to traffic or accidents ahead and give estimated travel times to major intersections.

Typically, I find these signs to be pretty helpful. Granted, on this particular trip there was little I could do were there to be an accident or a delay, as there is only one way to get to Minnesota from Illinois (well, okay, there is more than one, but this is the quickest and fastest so let's pretend it's the only one - I'm not driving through Milwaukee or Des Moines to get home that would be silly). But last Saturday all the signs were showing the exact same message:

ROAD CONSTRUCTION INFORMATION
AVAILABLE ON ILLINOIS TOLLWAY WEBSITE
At first I thought it was a joke. The whole point of the signs is to tell me when there would be delays (caused by...oh...say...ROAD CONSTRUCTION!?!?) and yet they are telling me that I should go back home, log onto my computer, find the Illinois Tollway website (which you'll notice they don't list*) peruse the construction patterns, then get back into my car and head out? Ridiculous, I tell you. But every single sign said the same thing - all 80 miles or so on the way out of state.
Most telling of all - there *was* no road construction on the entire tollway. So even if I had checked before I left, it wouldn't have even shown anything anyway. Every time I start thinking that my state government is smart because I live in a blue state they go and do stuff like this...
*One wonders how long it'll be before some porn site buys www.illinoistollway.net hoping to lure unsuspecting traffic-info seekers into a lurid world of nude hedonism...

Comments

grrrbear said…
Okay, for some reason Blogger is not letting me correct the formatting of this past post to put hard returns between paragraphs. Tt's driving me insane. But I still can't fix it! ARRGGH!

I'm not OCD I swear, but this still *really* bothers me. Take my word as soon as it can be fixed, it will be and please don't think less of me for my flawed formatting. Thanks, America!