Street sign theft occurs when street signs are stolen, often to be used as decorations, but also sometimes to avoid obeying the law by claiming later the sign was not there. Although the theft often seems arbitrary, signs that are unusual or amusing tend to be stolen more frequently. Sometimes considered to be a prank by the perpetrators, the theft is often costly and inconveniencing for the municipality or agency that owns the sign. In the United States, each street sign generally costs between $100 and $500 to replace.
Popular culture can act as a catalyst to street sign theft. Bands such as The Beatles and Lynyrd Skynyrd have exacerbated street sign theft as their songs and albums include real place names including Penny Lane, Blue Jay Way, Abbey Road, and Brickyard Road.
A provocative street name or other name on the sign can also trigger thefts. Well-known examples include Ragged Ass Road in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories and Butt Hole Road in Conisbrough, Doncaster, England. Also frequently stolen are place name signs for the village of Fucking, Austria.
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Famous quotes containing the words street, sign and/or theft:
“He has given me six hundred street signs.
The time I was dancing he built a museum.
He built ten blocks when I moved on the bed.
He constructed an overpass when I left.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 12:39.
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969)