Electronic road signs in downtown New York City were broken into over the weekend and instead of telling drivers to go slowly next to a Houston Street construction site, they flashed prankster messages such as “New York is dying,” according to a report from The New York Post.
The newspaper Tuesday reported that the electronic road signs — called variable message signs in the industry because they can be easily programmed by local traffic authorities to show illuminated instructions for what to do in bad weather or around construction — were tampered with in the lower Manhattan area over the weekend. According to the report, pranksters opened the backs of the signs and reprogrammed them using the control-box keypad.
Pranksters hit variable message signs used for traffic control in Collinsville, Ill., in February, changing them to read “Daily lane closures due to zombies.” In the same period, Carmel, Ind., had road signs altered to read “Raptors ahead—Caution!” And Austin, Texas, road signs also were struck by pranksters, who altered them to read “Nazi zombie! Run!”.
Source: Network World