Sunday 10 August 2008

Have street signs got a future?

On my recent wanderings, I noticed a Council worker taking down old streets signs and replacing them with new ones. Our Council is an amalgamation of two other Councils, and I suppose someone got sick of looking at the old Council names on the signs.

I have no idea how much this is costing us ratepayers, and I don't want to know.

But it did get me thinking about the utility of street signs. They've done fantastic service for a long time, but are they now redundant as the world moves from a mapbook to GPS? In a few years time, most cars will have a GPS, and GPS will probably be a common feature in most mobile phones. It might even go Dick Tracey and start appearing in watches (assuming people continue to wear watches and don't just start using their phone as a clock - after all, the original watch was a pocket watch).

I have been considering whether to get a GPS mount for my bike handlebars, but can't find one that fits a pushbike. The GPS that I have in the car can be mounted on a motorbike, but not a pushbike, and I can't justify the expense of buying a separate, bike-specific GPS just yet.

That day will come - that I am sure of. It might be a year or two down the road though.

So, does anyone care to place a bet as to when Councils will give up on erecting or replacing street signs, or will they just continue to do it forever because "that's just the way we've always done it"?

3 comments:

kae said...

Oh dear. I'm terribly behind the times.

I use a street directory.

Kaboom said...

Yeah, and I bet you turn it upside down when following a route, too!

Boy on a bike said...

Flipping heck Kaboom, you like to live dangerously. You're tickling a bloodnut remember. Them things are damned unstable.