GUARDRAIL DAMAGE AHEAD

GUARDRAIL DAMAGE AHEAD

In this last year and a half I’ve passed a myriad of signs posted beside the freeway, saying, “GUARDRAIL DAMAGE AHEAD”. The reason for these signs has always mystified me!

Do I say, “Dang, I wanted to hit that guardrail first, but somebody else beat me to it!”

Or maybe it’s to make me more cautious, as in, “Man, if I get into a skid here, I might go through the guardrail and kill myself, rather than just bouncing off it. I guess I’ll slow down and be extra careful.”

And, of course, I always think to myself, “I wonder how much it cost to send a crew out here to plant that sign, compared to sending a crew out to fix the guardrail?”

I found out the reason today.

My nephew Joe whacked a guardrail in the little village of Yuba, OK, a couple of nights ago. He was shying away from a semi truck that he thought was crowding him, and he didn’t see the guardrail until too late. He was not hurt, but the pickup had two ruined tires and wheels on the right side.

Yesterday he started searching the internet and found some used wheels and tires that someone had taken off their truck to replace with fancier wheels and low profile tires. They were in Dallas, TX, (actually Irving), so I put my trailer on the car and we went down and bought them for cash and brought them back to Durant.

We called the wrecking yard and they agreed to release the truck and allow us to change the two bad tires in their yard if we paid the towing and storage bill, so we went down today and got the truck back home.

While we were talking to the proprietor of the wrecking yard, I made a joke about the likelihood that they probably already had the “DAMAGED GUARDRAIL AHEAD” sign up. He immediately informed me that that was to give the dispatchers a break.

Since cell phones were invented, dispatchers got hundreds of calls from concerned drivers who wanted to inform the police that somebody had hit the guardrail and damaged it. That would go on for days until they put up the sign to advise drivers that this damage was already known at the police station, and they could relax and give the dispatcher a break.

Well, that clears that up. Makes sense now.

Although, I’m still wondering if it wouldn’t be cheaper to have a big Band-Aid to stick on the damage, or maybe tie a sheet around the guardrail, like a battle dressing, to show that the authorities know, and have a new guardrail ordered.