Macabre caution signs

Last time I was in San Francisco I noticed one such sign in a parking garage, where they have those mechanically raising bars at the exit. They show a picture of Mr. Ped having the bar dropped on his head, where it breaks and has him seeing stars.

While that one's a little amusing even, with the stars floating about his head, I noticed some darker ones on some of the beaches on Maui:

• no diving: Mr. Ped is shown diving into water 1-foot deep. He's just about to accordion half the length of his body into a huge rock.
• shorebreak: Mr. Ped has taken up bodysurfing, and is riding a 10-foot wave about to crash straight onto the beach with no water below
• Man-O-War: Mr Ped's leg is being stung as he's surrounded on all sides by jellyfish half his size.

There's an official highway sign on a certain mountainous road here, that reads "20 PEOPLE HAVE BEEN KILLED ON THIS ROAD IN THE LAST TWO YEARS. DON'T YOU BE NEXT." Just the thing to calm your nerves, eh?

A friend of mine who works in construction told me about a few he saw:

• Mr. Ped being crushed between the moving parts of a pivotiong tractor (blood incuded)


• Mr. Ped being chopped in half by a backhoe.


• Mr. Ped having a leg taken off by a jackhammer

Here in St. Louis, Mo there is a section of Highway 21 that is known as Blood Alley. It has a sign that has "Blood Alley" really big on it, a few other things, and a death count. To emphize the death count rather then replace it each time the previous number is X-ed out and a new number is placed next to it. I think the count started at 20 and is now over 30 and the numbers take up almost half the sign.

While not quite as deeply disturbing as some of the Mr. Ped phenomena listed above, two pedestrian crossing caution signs I have seen struck me as troublesome.

The American pedestrian crossing signs show a happy, somewhat relaxed stick figure walking, sometimes accompanied by a small, normal enough child stick figure. The European versions show adult and child stick figures, a bit more upright, calmly walking on a crosswalk.

Mexico?
Ha.
The signs show a mother and child dashing frantically across the street. Their hair is flying, the mother's arm placed fearfully across the child's back.

Along the freeway just north of San Diego, California, are somewhat similar, yet less frantic, signs. A whole family scurries from the beach across the freeway, stooping fearfully and dodging traffic.

A couple I saw while hiking in hong kong. Again, not exactly the most reassuring of signs:

• Beware flash floods: Mr. Ped flying through the air headfirst, a raging torrent of water underneath.
• Warning: strong undertow: He's completely upside-down in this one, being swept under by a vicious-looking wave.

And then there's a couple more I've seen around:

• Warning: electricity (as seen on large transformers and such): Mr. Ped being hit from above by a spark the width of his head.
• Danger: corrosive: A drop of liquid falling onto a hand, which already has a rather painful-looking dent in it. (One wonders why the owner of the hand did not withdraw it after the first drop hit.)