Telltale signs of snowflake-ization are all around if one knows where to look but these 10 “Beware Of” signs prove we really are living in a world of hurt.

This bit of fore-shadowing comes courtesy of Pixabay member aitoff and Charleston, SC golf bag retailer The Elliott Company. The seriously circumspect sign at the Royal North Devon Golf Club in Bideford, UK could relay several different meanings – just ask any “golf widow”. Note that the golf bag, artfully propped beneath the weathered sign, features a miniature replica of said sign. Impressive, even if you’re not Xzibit.

MAXI Driving Excitement

When driving in the UAE, one must expect the unexpected… if you don’t believe us, just read the sign. Flickr member Jerry “Woody” (woody1778a) snapped the er, surprisingly ambiguous sign while on a 2006 road trip through the Emirates.

Subtracters Say…

I was told there would be no math… oh, you mean snakes. That’s umm, NOT better, right Indy? In April of 2009, Flickr member WordRidden was moved to photograph the above warning sign in Goonhilly Downs, which just happens to be located on the UK’s most southerly point of land… The Lizard. Aha, now it’s all adding up.

Fronds in High Places

Don’t stand, don’t stand, don’t stand so close to tree. Just imagine: if Isaac Newton had lived in Hawaii instead of England there would be no gravity today, and therefore, no need for this warning sign. Seriously though, getting conked on your coconut BY a coconut is no laughing matter. Physics can’t be reckoned with, no matter how many palms you grease. Flickr member anokarina snapped this ominously armed & fabulous tree early in 2013.

Panic at the Disc, Oh!

Alien abduction just ahead, hold onto your butts! Flickr member Michel Curi chanced upon this odd – some might say “otherworldly” – warning sign from Largo, Florida in the spring of 2017. Now he spends his days constructing miniature replicas of Devil’s Tower out of mashed potatoes while muttering “This means something. This is important.”

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Beware Y Afraid 10 Weird Unexpected Warning Signs

Like some many things in the built environment, once you start noticing cones on poles you will see them everywhere — Cones on Poles, an “unofficial sequel” to The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal by Matt McCormick, explores “the strange phenomena of people placing cones on poles and other elevated places.”

What started out as a joke has become a study of adaptive patterns — per Matt, some are “predictable, like a cone being placed atop a bollard that keeps people from backing up into an oil tank,” while “others that are more geo-locative, like a cone on a mailbox or telephone pole in a rural area, set in place to create a sort of landmark.”

Over time, he has started noting and naming different configurations — a cluster of three or more is a “congress” (above) and then, of course, there is the self-evident “triple stack” (below).

“Traffic cones are symbols within a larger semiotic system we’ve created around the driving of automobiles (signifier: traffic cone / signified: hazard),” he explains, “but with cones on poles we see instances of people individualizing that system; the practice of everyday life, as Michel de Certeau puts it.”

Cones, in essence, signal us to be on guard, whether by indicating the presence of a fire hydrant, acting as a beacon for a home or simply (much like street art) making us wonder: what is that there for?

“Like so many of my projects,” says Matt, “this is both tongue-and-cheek yet also serious. It’s fun and goofy, but also part of my larger effort to simply encourage people to pay attention to the natural and built environments around them.” Follow this semi-serious documentary project on Instagram, and check out a trailer for Matt’s latest documentary film below.

With prototypes set to hit the pavement in the Netherlands next year, these interactive  interventions take innovation back from a focus on the car and put it right on the road.

Examples include: glow-in-the-dark paints that recharge by day and illuminate by night, wind-driven roadside lamps, energy-saving motion-sensor lights, temperature- and moisture-sensitive weather- and road-condition displays with color-changing paint to warn of icing, and even dedicated induction-priority lanes to magnetically recharge electric cars.

The Dutch Design Award-winning team behind these designs comes from Studio Roosegaarde and Heijmans Infrastructure. Their work spans green technologies and safety measures that will merge with real-life lanes, providing useful feedback and assistance to drivers.

“It’s about safety, creating awareness but also making roads energy-neutral in terms of lighting … and most of all: creating the experience of an icon, the Route 66 of the future.” While we may eventually see a future where cars drive themselves, for now we live in a world where high speeds bring real dangers, and invention has not matched the acceleration of actual drivers. Time and experiments will tell how well these ideas actually work when applied to asphalt.