Traffic signs, particularly stop signs, are typically sheet metal and only several millimeters thick. These are found at intersections usually only a short distance from a certain end. This proximal location requires drivers to stop just before the implicit threat.

Thicker Stop Signs are carved out of logs, painted red and elevated on posts. They still feature the same block lettering on the face as conventional stop signs. The large size increases visibility, and provides a resting place for birds. Additionally, these place the instruction far ahead of the implicit threat imparting upon drivers greater agency, and greater time to contemplate their uncertain end.
-- rcarty, Dec 16 2012

Wikipedia: Sign http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign
[rcarty, Dec 16 2012]

The Eruv and bird danger http://citeseerx.is...bv.1355325884,d.bGE
Eruv: a thin wire extended between two poles. [pashute, Dec 17 2012]

It's for the halfbakery.
-- rcarty, Dec 16 2012


Birds were included. +
-- blissmiss, Dec 16 2012


This Idea could prove useful for those drivers who tend to run over stop signs. They would probably stop if the met one of these....
-- Vernon, Dec 17 2012


The sign is more significant in other words. What if stop signs said rest instead?
-- rcarty, Dec 17 2012


The British will claim its dangerous for the birds. (link:fixed)
-- pashute, Dec 17 2012


Logs are heavy. Would these be carved in prisons, like license plates? I'm not sure birds like to rest on logs except if they are floating in water. I need more time to think about this one.
-- xandram, Dec 17 2012


How about a set of stop signs so that when the vehicle is stopped correctly, a multiplexed message is revealed. Maybe people will then want to stop. Well, at least for the first time. A new job of a stop sign updater may cut into the future's unemployment problems.
-- wjt, Dec 18 2012


I don't see why unemployment is a problem. There's always going to be a core mass of functional people who connect the social with their being. The economy can run on those. Not everyone has to be like them, and it's best if not everyone is.
-- rcarty, Dec 18 2012


I presume the sign is carved into the end, not side, of the log and the log is horizontal, so the sign is, say, 2 m thick. That's fine. If the driver is speeding by fast enough, the sign will appear a few mm thick due to the Lorentz contraction.
-- sqeaketh the wheel, Dec 18 2012


[squeaketh] You also don't need to paint it red because it'll be so red-shifted.
-- hippo, Dec 18 2012


It'll be blue shifted while you approach; you'll have to paint it infra red.
-- spidermother, Dec 18 2012


Stop signs in space for light-speed travel will be many kilometers long.
-- rcarty, Dec 18 2012


Carved into a stop sign, is the whole log octagonal? Because tree-type logs are not naturally octagonal but basalt pillars (see Devils Tower, Giant's Causeway) are, and so might be well suited to this use.
-- bungston, Dec 18 2012


I've been to the Causeway, but the columns were pointing down, so not suitable for our application requiring horizontal ones.
-- sqeaketh the wheel, Dec 19 2012



random, halfbakery