Strange Tales
Langwarrin sign language
Deborah Morris
12May08
One of the mystery road signs. For more, click on the gallery link in this article.
HAVE YOU SNAPPED A FAKE ROAD SIGN?
Add it to our reader gallery
A MYSTERY artist is having fun with motorists by installing witty road signs in the Frankston area. But not everyone's amused.
The signs - including a speed hump sign with a couple in bed - have been causing offence among residents.
Word of the artwork has spread around Australia, with this Frankston Leader article and gallery the most read item on news.com.au, Australia's biggest national news website, last week.
Readers are now sending in their favourite witty signs and many - from as far as Canada - have had their say (see end of the article).
The mystery Frankston signs have been carefully made to look official.
Drivers have reported seeing them in Cranbourne-Frankston Rd, Langwarrin.
Some think they are funny while others - and officials - aren't laughing.
"On April 12 while driving I couldn't help but notice a blasphemous and absolutely obscene sign on the side of Cranbourne-Frankston Rd," said Minnie Turner, of Langwarrin, in an email to us.
"If this is part of our council's new 'signage' plan, I insist that someone get these signs off the road.
"This particular sign clearly depicted two people fornicating, with 'hump' written underneath."
The Leader has discovered a second, independent, sighting of the "hump" sign was made two weeks before Mrs Turner's email.
Mrs Turner said she had never encountered such distasteful signs in her 63 years of living in the area.
"These aren't amateur drawings or graffiti written on our signs. These are deliberately made, proper road signs," she wrote.
When the Leader went to inspect the sign the next morning, it was gone.
All that was left was a metal post on the median strip.
Frankston Council is not responsible for the signs because they are on a major road.
"It's VicRoads' responsibility," spokesman Paul Kennedy said.
"Council is only responsible for residential roads."
Although VicRoads' media department thought the signs were "very amusing", its regional director Steve Brown was not laughing.
The placement of inappropriate signs such as these was unsafe and illegal, he said.
"VicRoads has arranged for them to be removed immediately and may request police to assist in identifying who was responsible."
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