The 11 wildest rejects from Arizona’s highway safety sign contest

Highway safety signs are hardly high art.

They’re the Hallmark greeting cards of the road, pithy enough to elicit a muted chuckle before you toss them in your brain’s recycling bin. They may have a rhyme scheme or make some pop culture reference, crammed into a two- or three-line structure to remind you not to drive like a maniac. They also may not even work, but they’re a staple of the road nonetheless.

Arizona is among many states that hold safety slogan contests to fill those signs with pseudo-witty warnings, attracting legions of entries from the type of people who send in jokes to Reader’s Digest. The Arizona Department of Transportation recently announced two winners of such a contest, which were beamed at drivers on Loop 202 near Buckeye earlier this month. The “Fast and Furious” reference is a groaner, but the message telling Sunday drivers to vacate the fast lane is a sentiment that — unlike Sunday drivers — we enthusiastically get behind.

Those two slogans were chosen from among more than 3,000 entries. As one might expect when the internet encounters an open-submission contest, many entries did not exactly adhere to the bounds of good taste. Neither do we, though, which is why Phoenix New Times submitted a public records request for every slogan suggestion ADOT received in the contest. We wanted to know what didn’t make the cut.

At least 15 slogan suggestions mentioned slain Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, most of them encouraging people to drive like him. (In the right lane?) One of those was blatantly antisemitic. Other signs yelled “FUCK ICE” and “FUCK TRUMP.” However, the vast majority of sign suggestions were not objectionable as much as they were just…meh.

Still, as with the state’s rejected vanity license plates, there were some signs that perfectly blended “they’ll never use this” with “pretty damn funny.” Here, along with the very blunt sign at the top of this piece, are 11 of our favorites.

This entry appears to be from a person genuinely trying to advise caution to Arizona drivers. In the comments for a separate submission, he wrote, “Kinda feel like the people of the valley need this blunt of a communication unfortunately.” Maybe so, but it’s hard to imagine a world in which the word “crotch” ever makes it onto a highway sign. Unless you’re in Maine and driving to “Katie Crotch Road.”

“Hey, I might,” you say as you merge onto Interstate 17 at 98 miles an hour.

Sun City, let ‘er rip.

It’s the “Fast and Furious”/”The Pacifier” crossover we’ve all been waiting for!

“Mommy,” your 9-year-old asks from the back seat, “what’s a body cavity search?”

This is one half of what is known in academic circles as the “Speed Endowment Corollary.” Very technical stuff, tough to explain.

There’s the other half.

*Slowly and shamefully buckles seatbelt.*

What the hell is even that?

A true safety message, in its own way.

Matthew Bird contributed research to this story.