Governors' Names On Highway Signs Update

Over the past decade, I've commented several times on a pet peeve of mine, which is politicians sticking their names on highway and other road signs paid by taxpayers (see the following posts:  2014A, 2014B, 2014C, 2014D, 2014E, 2018A, 2018B, and 2018C).  Basically, the politicians are trying to get free political advertising at taxpayer expense.  I suspect no motorist really cares whom the mayor of a city is or the governor of a state is, and if any of them do care, it certainly isn't worth the expense of the sign (for states, sticking a governor's name on a sign can run to thousands of dollars).  This should be an easy fix, right?

Nope.  Politicians keep doing this.  And if they don't, some gal or guy in the highway department or whatnot who wishes to suck up to her or his new boss does.  I had a small hope that Ohio USA would take the opportunity to not to do so when a new governor took office in 2019, but, nope, they did it again.  This time, they just made new highway signs overall at greater expense (possibly to camouflage the costs of putting on the new governor's and lieutenant governor's names since they didn't make new overlay signs just for that).  Unfortunately, at some point, someone will have to paint over those names when the officeholders change or they'll be back to the overlay signs, so nothing really changed.  Also, unfortunately, though Pennsylvania still has a good I-80 sign at the spot I typically pass, I did spot a turnpike sign with the governor's name on it last year.

All these politicians obsessed with quarantines ought to quarantine these type of highway signs.  A plain welcome to wherever sign will suffice.  We don't need to know whom the governor is.  Of course, given the disastrous decisions many of these governors have made overreacting to COVID-19, they may regret having their names up on these signs.

After all, some irate folks who have had their lives destroyed by the lockdowns may follow Elon Musk's advice about tarring and feathering the politicians who panicked about the virus and use the signs as a reminder of whom exactly to boil the oil for.

If the continued existence of these highway signs depress you as well, cheer up with my latest novel!