on a road trip last year, we took I-70 east out of the denver area into my home state of kansas1. along this stretch of road was a rather infamous sign: the Mile 420 sign.
mile markers play an important role in the public safety of roadways and highway maintenance, as they provide artificial landmarks where there otherwise would be none to direct emergency services, road work contractors, and the like.
they are also small and relatively trivial to steal, as far as highway signs are concerned. so much so that, after recreational marijuana was legalized in colorado, CDOT had to figure out how to get people to stop stealing the haha funny weed joke sign heading back to kansas.
their clever solution to the problem: replace the sign with one that does not say 420. CDOT installed a Mile 419.99 sign in its place.
as a road sign nerd (yes i have a printed copy of the MUTCD on my bookshelf; yes i reference it), i was very excited to show my partner this peculiar sign along our road trip.
someone had fucking stolen it. the post it belonged to stood naked out of the ground.
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semi-relatedly: kansas has the best state highway shield in the US and i will fight anyone who says otherwise
