Classical Values :: dodging snow and missing signs

dodging snow and missing signs

After carefully avoiding the snow (by taking I-70 all the way to Dayton, Ohio, then driving up I-75) I made it home last night.

The biggest problem was that I nearly missed the I-75 exit because the signs had been so severely painted over by vandals as to be unreadable. In fact, almost every single road sign -- including almost every mileage marker -- on Highway 70 has been painted with dark brown paint, in what struck me as a superhuman effort by someone (or a group of people) to prevent anyone from reading the numbers.

Eventually I realized that this was paintball gun vandalism, but I had not known how far it had gone. I do not exaggerate when I say that almost every sign -- from the Ohio border to Dayton and from Dayton to Toledo -- has been hit. It's beyond ordinary vandalism like spray-painting buildings, as people rely on road markers and signs and when they are unreadable, confusion and accidents could easily result.

I doubt much if anything would be done to these vandals if they were ever caught, but I think the problem offers an illustration of a key difference between left and right thinking. Individualist types on the right would want the focus to be on finding and punishing the offender -- as severely as possible. The liberal communitarian approach, OTOH, would be to ban or limit the sale of paintball guns. In other words, one side believes in singling out the bad individual, while the other wants to punish everyone, by bureaucratic encroachment. As most readers know, I lean towards the former approach of nailing the bastards, even though I know it will never happen to them, even if they're caught.

"Priorities." (Spare me.)

The most callused approach I could find was apparently voiced by Seattle's Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis, who was quoted here as saying, "With all the problems with real bullets, we think residents should be able to let loose with paintball guns."

Hey, maybe they'll hit his house!

Comments

I think the liberal (or Berkeley) response would be to try to convince the paintball vandals to stop doing this by discussing the issue rationally with them and appealing to their sense of justice. Swarthmore College has a course "Nonviolent Responses to Terrorism" that may help. See: http://www.swarthmore.edu/x5963.xml

chocolatier · February 22, 2009 04:21 PM

That's got to be new. I drove that route a week ago and none of the I-70 signs showed any paintball (or other) paint.

jetfxr6i · February 22, 2009 10:07 PM

In SE Ohio, the big problem is outright theft of the signs for their aluminum. Guard rails too. Apparently, there are some recyclers across the river who don't ask questions.

Bob Sykes · February 23, 2009 08:00 AM

This is one reason why I support surveillance cameras in limited situations. But, with this caveat; when handled entirely in-house. Never out-source surveillance to any private company.

Though I must ask this question; does paintball paint dry brown?

Alan Kellogg · February 23, 2009 02:38 PM

Reading that this is a new problem, I called the appropriate Ohio DOT office at (614) 466-3250. Sure enough, this was the first time they'd heard about the problem. Apparently no one has complained.

Amazing.

If this just happened over the weekend and the vandal(s) used a paintball gun, maybe it will wash off.

Is it water-based?

Eric Scheie · February 23, 2009 02:53 PM

The paintballs my kids used to buy were all of the sort that washed off with a bit of water. They used to use shed for target practice and it never looked bad for more than a couple of days.

That isn't an excuse for the vandals. Clearly there is a problem until the paint washes/fades.

Dann · February 23, 2009 04:40 PM

discussing the issue rationally with them and appealing to their sense of justice.

We'll hit them hard and fast with a major, and I mean major, leaflet campaign.

HeatherRadish · February 24, 2009 11:37 AM

There is one big problem with the paintball hypothesis, paintball gun pellets use red paint. I don't think any red paint dries brown. Especially not dark brown.

Could it be that somebody complained about tagging on the signs and the local anti-tagging task force sent people out to paint out the tags?

Or, the signs were mislabeled and the painting was down as a stopgap measure until the signs could be correctly labeled.

Alan Kellogg · February 24, 2009 09:01 PM