The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) is widely considered to be a dry and unemotional document. Published by the Department of Transportation, it outlines the basic specifications of all the street signs you could expect to see out on roads and highways across the United States. Most are familiar, but if you dive deeper into its pages, you can find some unsettling relics from darker times.
Back in the mid-20th century, America was tangling with the realities of nuclear war. Top generals contemplated targeting strategies, while engineers mused over whether there was anything to be done top stop a torrent of enemy missiles falling across the nation. These superweapons seemed to promise destruction on an overbearing scale, threatening the very existence of human civilization itself.
Against this bleak backdrop, government administrators turned to the concept of Civil Defense. The idea was to do whatever could be done to protect the citizens of the nation from the horrors of nuclear war and its immediate aftermath. In turn, the Department of Transport worked up some rather depressing road signs to help people get where they needed to be in these bleak and trying times.
Flip open the 1961 edition of the MUTCD, and you’ll find an important section on Civil Defense. It featured a handful of designs for traffic management in a post-nuclear world. Perhaps most interesting was the “MAINTAIN TOP SAFE SPEED” sign, designated CD-4. It’s purpose was highly unique:
The “MAINTAIN TOP SAFE SPEED” sign may be used on highways where radiological contamination is such as to limit the permissable exposure time for occupants of vehicles passing through the area. Since any speed zoning would be impractical under such emergency conditions, no minimum speed limit can be prescribed by the sign in numerical terms. Where traffic is supervised by a traffic regulation post, official instructions will usually be given verbally, and the sign will serve as an occasional reminder of the urgent need for all reasonable speed.
Basically, if you saw this sign, you’re supposed to be gunning it as fast as you can while still staying on the road. The intention is to limit your exposure to radiation as much as possible while traveling through contaminated areas.
The 1971 edition of the MUTCD expanded further on the Civil Defense section. The DOT had by this time developed a standardized sign for marking directions to fallout shelters, where citizens could wait out radioactive contamination falling from the sky after a nuclear attack. The document also specified a sign for decontamination centers, where those suffering radiation exposure might be treated by experienced personnel.
Further signs in this series include the “AREA CLOSED” sign used to designate areas of high radiological or biological contamination that are too unsafe for travel. The DOT also specified a blue “Evacuation Route” sign marked with the Civil Defense logo. It was intended to guide citizens to safety along pre-planned routes.
Ultimately, the Department of Transport prepared these signs for when things really hit the fan. Thankfully, the worst fears of the Cold War never came to pass, and these signs weren’t needed in any major emergency situation.
And yet! Some of these signs persist in the MUTCD standard to the day. The most recent edition still includes some of these signs—like EM4-1b ‘FALLOUT SHELTER’—but now places them under the category of Emergency Management signs. The bleak term of “Civil Defense” is no longer very relevant in government administrative circles.
Us car enthusiasts do like driving fast. Still, when the government has put out a sign telling you to floor it, you know the situation has to be dire. In the end, most of these signs have never been put to use, and that’s something we can all be thankful for. Regardless, the Department of Transport stands ready with signage prepared to deal with whatever might happen down the line.
Image credits: Department of Transport, top shot logobom/depositphotos.com
Crap! How did you get that picture of my birthplace!
I have seen Evacuation Route signs around my area without the Civil Defense logo
Very tempted to make one of these up…
I once visited PNNL Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. They gave me a safety pamphlet with a chart of emergency siren sounds and the proscribed responses. The one for Ah-Ooh-Ga was to RUN. No further instructions. My interpretation was to kiss your ass goodbye.
Yeah, the National Labs are interesting and you never really know what all is going on there. I went to Livermore for a visit and was issued a visitor badge with a dosimeter attached. A few weeks after the visit they sent a report on how much radiation I was exposed to. Good times.
LOL – BTDT- they are a client of mine. Definitely an interesting place. I also count Lincoln National Labs and Idaho National Labs as clients too, as well as some other defense sites I can’t talk about. 🙂
I think there is one stage higher that RUN, and that’s RUN IN TERROR!
My combined inner Mad Max and Atari Road Blasters player wants this sign so much…
In the South we have Hurricane Evacuation signs. They have arrows pointing away from the ocean.
When I used to live near the beach in California we had “Tsunami Evacuation Route” signs pointing at the nearest hill.
Yeah especially in Eureka, which would be fuuuuuuucked if a big one hit.
Crescent City is fuuuuuuucked even by the little ones!
I kinda like Crescent City.
We also have them along the coast (& inland) of southwestern Washington state, too.
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/K9GC1B/raymond-washington-tsunami-evacuation-route-warning-sign-K9GC1B.jpg
The one’s I’ve seen look like the circular Evacuation Route signs above but without the Civil Defense logo.
Montana tried “reasonable and prudent” speed limit from 1995 to 1999.
Thanks to the professional arsehole of the highest class, Rudy Stanko, this speed limit was struck down by the state supreme court as too ambiguous.
In Germany, we have some cases that police officers along with leftist politicians, public prosecutors, and judges deemed too fast or too dangerous. Many times, their complaints were struck down by the administrative courts as frivolous. Case in point, a Bugatti owner drove his Chiron to more than 400 km/h on the Autobahn and posted it to the YouTube. The shitstorm ensued but died down as it was obvious that the owner didn’t endanger anyone on the Autobahn and did have common sense…
If he was in a speed limit free section he technically didn’t break any law.
( though driving a Chiron at that speed in traffic is begging for a disaster to happen )
The second subparagraph of the first paragraph of the road traffic regulations states: Anyone participating in traffic must behave in such a way that no other person is harmed, endangered or obstructed or inconvenienced more than is unavoidable under the circumstances.
In German, Straßenverkehrsverordnung §1, Absatz 2: Wer am Verkehr teilnimmt hat sich so zu verhalten, dass kein Anderer geschädigt, gefährdet oder mehr, als nach den Umständen unvermeidbar, behindert oder belästigt wird.
Thus, the shitstorm…regardless of whether the Bugatti owner drove on the stretches that didn’t have speed limit. This is where the problem is as I mentioned in my original comment. This paragraph is more open to interpretation what constitutes the “danger” and “harm”.
In the 60s, Nevada had “Reasonable and Prudent” on highway 40 (pre interstate 80). My trips across Nevada were in a little Datsun PL411 1300 that would be lucky to hit 80mph down hill w/ a tailwind. 70 was screaming its little heart out.
I was so jealous of an older couple in a Mustang convertible (top down) that would blast past me between towns (each town would post it’s City Limits about 5 miles past the last house or gas station and set the limit at 45 until you saw civilization, then it was 25) They must have stopped for gas, pee break or food. About 10 miles past the city limits, the Mustang would blast past me again. All kind of exciting on a 2 lane road.
Just a reminder;
Even the most depressing Cold War planning documents you find were still overly optimistic.
All the hospitals in America do not have the capacity to handle one major city getting nuked, much less all of them at once.
Top government leaders and elites will get evacuated and be protected in some kind of doomsday bunker that is top secret at all times. Everything else in the land of “more guns than citizens” will quickly devolve to a mad max Wild West scramble for whatever leftover food and water can be scavenged as society collapses completely.
The lucky ones will die in the blasts. Some will die of radiation poisoning. The majority will starve to death.
I grew up in northern NJ during the height of the cold war. As a nerd, I relied on the belief the Soviet missiles had such poor accuracy (CEP) ones targeted for the Empire State Building would explode over NJ.
I grew up in SE Connecticut and Connecticut College radio station called itself Ground Zero Radio as it is across the street from the Coast Guard Academy and across the river from the US Naval Submarine Base and Electric Boat/General Dynamics. All high priority targets for a nuclear annihilation. I was terrified as a kid when I learned what all that meant.
Those don’t strike me as particularly high priority targets. A nuclear strike is a one-and-done type deal – you either catch us with our pants down and win (and hope our NATO allies don’t nuke your ass), or we’re both annihilated when we launch a retaliatory strike.
As such, targeting the place that builds submarines wouldn’t make any sense because after a nuclear war between superpowers, we won’t need to build anymore submarines for awhile. Even the submarine base – sure, you might catch a sub or two in port, but you’re not going to catch the boomers hiding off your coast, and those are the ones you need to worry about. And while it’s where the submarines themselves are based, their central command is in Norfolk and can be transferred to just about anywhere in a pinch.
And for the Coast Guard, they perform an important service, but one which will not impact the outcome of a nuclear war in any way.
Nuclear war is more scorched earth genocide than strategic.
America and Russia have each others major food producing regions targeted as well besides large military and population centers
I mean, yes and no. You still have a limited number of nukes, and you need to decapitate the other guy quickly. Yes, they’re screwed even if you just nuke food supplies, etc, but they’re not screwed so quickly that they can’t retaliate.
The only scenario in which you get out alive is if you can remove their ability to strike back. That’s why the Cuban Missile Crisis was such a big deal. The nukes were right off the coast and could hit a number of strategic sites before we could launch ours. At the time of the crisis, the Soviets had fewer than 80 ICBMs, which isn’t enough to completely eliminate our ability to strike back, hence moving the shorter range missiles to Cuba.
In short, we might have each other’s food regions targeted now, but only because we have so many more missiles than we really need. Eliminating the food supply doesn’t matter – topple the government and you’ve eliminated the enemy whether they can eat or not.
We lived in Omaha during the 60s, you know, right next to Strategic Air Command AFB. We always figured we’d be first.
nowadays we all know about Greenbriar, as the safe house for top US government leader…
( I know the facility has been technically disused, but it’s still there and there’s still he Hotel/resort around it )
Yes the Greenbriar facility is still there. It’s a tourist attraction. You can take tours of it. Its history is extensively documented. This is largely because…. it’s no longer the facility “Government Leaders” will be evacuated to when the Zombies attack. The location of its replacement is reasonably well known… but I’m wearing a tinfoil hat… so I won’t disclose it.
We’re waaaaay overdue for an update of The Day After so people have a realistic idea of what a post-nuclear strike attack would really look like. So many folks legitimately imagine it’s a Mad Max scenario and the truth is so much worse.
It’s pretty grim to see old post-WW2 radios with “CD” markers on the dial for the AM Civil Defense radio stations
Those would be useful, as long as the Civil Defense broadcaster’s transmitting antenna did not melt down in the nuclear blast.
(Or the antenna could survive, but its coaxial cable could be damaged.)
AM goes pretty far though, especially at night. Or it could be a short-range special purpose CD transmitter that wouldn’t be set up until needed. Kind of like the transmitter set up at an early drive-through covid vaccination site here in CT, broadcasting instructions to the cars in line.
AM is amazing at night, which is something today’s kids are missing out on.
I remember listening to a station in Cuba when I was in Canada on vacation as a teen. KGO in San Francisco could often be heard clearly in Hawaii.
Stations in Idaho and Montana made it to the SF Bay Area at night, as did KNX and KFI in Los Angeles, XPRS in Rosarito, Baja California, and KOMO in Seattle and 1120 KPNW in Springfield, Oregon. KSL in Salt Lake City… When you go camping, take along a good quality AM radio and see what you can find after the sun goes down. When the atmospheric conditions are right, there are some terrific surprises out there!
CONELRAD, shut down in ’63, but my ’64 has the markings, was built in February, so they obviously still had a lot of radios on the shelf
Bat Country
Seriously, between this and the lack of the Mad Max sign…
At the bottom of a very steep hill that leads to this house there is a sign that is folded shut. Padlocked and wax sealed. After driving/ biking/walking past it for twenty years I took a cast of the wax and a grinder to to unused padlock. I then opened it. And shut it.and put the wax back.
And…
What was it??
Did miss something?
Dude, don’t leave us hanging!
I thought the MAINTAIN TOP SAFE SPEED sign was for women wearing bikinis and driving convertibles.
A whole piece from Lewin on this and yet not a single reference to this signage?! What is pre-apocalyptic Australia coming to??
https://images.app.goo.gl/94Bei1fWi2C925uK6
oh there’s a few signs in that movie that really get me going
really interesting fonts too
This is the perfect speed zone sign for Cannonballers.
” IF YOU CAN READ THIS, YOU’RE TOO SLOW!”
*picture of Blinky with 3 X’d eyes*
This is fascinating. But I kinda feel like if I’m escaping nuclear fallout, I don’t really need the sign.
Not so much for escaping, but for in the months afterward when you need to cross a contaminated area to get where you need to go.
On the other hand, if you see this sign and you think you’re going to die, choose your destination carefully because it turns out they’re in opposite directions:
https://live.staticflickr.com/6129/5930012541_414340e1d2_c.jpg
Variations of other road signs that might also be useful:
“Keep Windows Closed At All Times”
“Put your AC on “recirculate.””
“No Hitchiking. Mutants Ahead.”
“Hitchhikers May Be Radioactive Flesh-Eating Zombies”
“Caution, Falling Fallout Ahead.”
Aliens in this area.
Do not stop.
Hitch hikers may not be what they appear to be.
In case of fallout place your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye. Note if you can’t bend that much kiss your passengers ass goodbye.
This reminds me of that image of the cylinder of Cobalt-60 stamped with the words “DANGER RADIATION – DROP AND RUN”
Those rods are pretty small and the typeset smaller.
Pretty sure by the time you’ve made out the words and the message had sunk in you’d be looking at a real bad time.
Joke’s on you buddy, I’m getting to the age where you just take a cellphone pic and pinch-zoom it at your leisure later!
Would a cell phone camera even work with that much radiation?
You might get some static, and dead pixels, but it would still work. Although, even without picking it up you’d still be in trouble just getting close enough to read the writing.
That said, those particular C0-60 cylinders are over 60 years old now, so they will have decayed to the point where you could hold one in your hand for maybe tens seconds, and come away with only minor radiation burns. Totally survivable!
“yeah, you could totally hold it in your hand for like ten seconds and only come away with minor radiation burns…totally survivable!” That is a crazy sentence. By my personal safety standards, that is still a “drop and run” type of situation.
I feel like I saw a bunch of these around Devil’s Tower a few years back.
That was more than 50 years ago they had that chemical spill out there. I bought a canary so I made it out OK. Don’t know whatever happened to that one guy I saw, though.
Did you hear any 5 tones followed by flashes of light when you were there?
He hasn’t finished sculpting his mashed potatoes yet.
These sections were still in the MUTCD until the Millenium Edition update in 2000. While regular signs have materials and visibilty standards, the emergency signs could be made from whatever durable materials were handy.
I HAVE to find a “maintain top safe speed” sign for my garage
You could get a custom made sign with that on it. Might not be quite the right size, but for a garage I think it’d work. Somewhere like https://www.buildasign.com/parking-signs lets you upload custom images.
How fast can you go in your garage?
That question lead to a series of escalating stupidities but left me the winner at 35mph.
I was so much stupider (more stupider? I don’t words good) back then, and had access to bigger garages.
According to my speedometer I’ve gotten my rear tires up to 110mph in my garage.
From a David Tracy article:
“Shed skid” — a smoky burnout that any layperson can do legally in the confines of their “shed” (garage).
Yes, car enthusiasts actually, and proudly, lay humongous, permanent black rubber marks on their own garage floors.
https://www.theautopian.com/the-shed-skid-and-shed-crawl-are-two-awesome-parts-of-australian-car-culture-that-america-should-adopt/comment-page-1/
Look at my username, clearly very fast
I have a windshield decal on my 68 Charger that reads “DEEPS EFAS POT NIATNIAM”
Now we have electronic signs for civil defense needs: https://www.theledger.com/story/news/2009/12/23/dot-zombie-warning-sign-work-of-hacker/26236498007/
So, basically, after a nuclear holocaust, some road crew would have to run around and swap out highway signs so postapocalyptic commuters or road trippers would know not to be afraid of getting a speeding ticket from the cop hiding behind the pile of crumbled concrete that used to be a mall?
They also assumed enough personal vehicles would be functional, which, I guess, in the days of simple electronics was a bit more likely than it is now
I’m guessing that they were planning on a scenario where, after a radiological disaster (not necessarily a nuclear strike), roadways through affected areas would simply be closed. At some point, authorities would have to determine if certain roads could be re-opened for use, knowing that contamination would be present for decades or centuries. Hence the signs – if you have to use this road, haul ass.
Not so much about tickets. Really more of a “Stop looking out the window at the scenery and step on it if you don’t want a third arm to grow out of your forehead.”
oh, but a 3rd arm would be so useful, I could get 3x as much meaningless bullshit done.
Radiation doesn’t mutate you, it mutates your future kids.
All you get is cancer
Aw man, I can get cancer anywhere.
Uh… cancer is… mutated cells.
Well yes, but the point is that it doesn’t mutate you enough to make you grow extra appendages, because the human body has no capability for growing appendages out of the womb
You must be fun at parties.
Deadpool says you’re wrong.
I would hate to be the guy who has to stand out there in the nuclear fallout, installing road signs all day.