Road Cone, “Witch’s Hat”, “Contractors Yard Glass”, call them what you will, but these items of traffic control equipment have proliferated to an astounding degree over the last decade.
Prior to their arrival, traffic control was accomplished by a much simpler means – recycled 44 gallon oil drums, sometimes filled with water, with the occasional 6 volt battery powered hurricane lamp hung over the side so you could see them on a dark night.
If you didn’t, and were unfortunate enough to hit one that was filled with water, you and your vehicle really knew about it, irresistible force meets immovable object notwithstanding!
Then some bright spark had the idea of the road cone, glorious in its fluorescent orange finery with or without reflective trimmings.
These little orange Daleks seem to reproduce at an astonishing rate and there is no escaping them – they are everywhere. Indoors, Outdoors, Roads, Motorways, Parking Lots, Supermarkets, Playing Fields, even on the top of a few select trees!
There is no avoiding their presence at night either as those that are fitted with reflective tape shine your headlights back at you with retina burning ferocity.
At least if you manage to hit one it doesn’t remove the side of your vehicle as the old 44-gallon drums would, so progress has been made in that respect. However they can get quite entangled under your vehicle emitting strange sounds in their death throes and scaring the bejeezus out of the vehicle’s occupants in the process!
However, the person that came up with the road cone concept must have laughed all the way to the bank many times over with the royalties.
