I guess someone has found a way to earn extra. Maybe there is a need to increase competition, for example by ordering the signs from elsewhere.
I checked the prices of official traffic signs in our country and the prices for standard signs seemed to be mostly 45-170 euros (VAT 0%). There are several competing companies making identical (official) traffic signs and that keeps the prices low. A custom sign is probably more expensive but not that much.
All of systematics and faunal documentation goes in the third category.
I am thankful for this: explain xkcd
I wasn’t sure, precisely what type of map Hairy was showing us. That question warmed my librarian heart.
There’s a big difference in where they go and/or what they’re for. Simple metal signs are more like $75 each, so a custom one would be maybe twice that assuming it went on a standard blank. The heavy-duty plywood-plus ones are the expensive version.
Even for stop signs the county and state use the heavy-duty ones around here, for a simple reason: every year we have storms where trees fall on signs or wind-blown branches hit them, which tends to ruin the metal ones, but I’ve seen one of the heavy-duty ones that had a tree hit it and the tree bounced off (though the pole holding the sign was toast). Those heavy-duty ones are about an inch thick and of special plywood that can handle fifty years of rain and snow and road grease and such, and they have another useful property: there are idiot redneck types who think that shooting signs is a form of fun, and that ruins metal signs pretty fast, but the heavy-duty ones? Put a .330 rifle bullet through one and that stuff doesn’t even leave an exit wound; a bit of super-putty and paint and the sign is good as new. That holds for shotguns, too; I’ve seen a metal traffic sign turned to scrap by a shotgun from close up, but the same cartridge used a one of those heavy-duty ones just leaves little marks that are easily puttied over and painted.
New heavy-duty signs the county got for a new road are even tougher; they’re expected to last 60 years and then probably just need re-painted. Oh – that paint comes at about $90 a gallon.
Silly me started to solve it. But I think the dx at the end should be outside the square root symbol.
It has to be, as you cannot do a square root of dx. I think whoever wrote it didn’t know how to use the Microsoft Word equation editor.
The cheap alternative is to replace a damaged metal sign with a new one. It is more easy than painting the old one.
Here, many signs along highways are switched every spring and autumn because the summer and winter speed limits differ. With snow and ice on the roads, the speed limit on highways is reduced to 80 km/h (= 50 miles/h) and the speed limits on motorways to 100 km/h. During summers, speed limits may be higher because a too low speed limit would lead to a situation where most drivers would not obey the speed limits.
If there are traffic cameras along roads, low speed limits would yield more money to the state through speeding fines but alcohol prohibitions a century ago gave a good lesson: it is bad for the society if a large part of the citizens learn to break the laws habitually.
Of course, the cost of a sign is mostly labor. To send a crew out to set the sign costs far more than the materials.
Maybe – but the time and labor costs of replacing dozens of signs every year is substantial, and the heavy-duty ones generally don’t need repaired until they actually wear out.
On signs, my sister in law once worked at a bookstore called The Sign of the Fish. She once took a call asking for someone to paint a sign. Unfortunately, she didn’t immediately think of Matt. 12:39.
The way that many street signs are extremely reflective is because tiny spherical glass beads are incorporated into the paint. Those beads contribute to the price, though.
Love that bumper sticker!
I have seen one like it, too.
While I was behind a car at a stop light.
That sounds like a legitimate way to read it! I promise, I saw ours at a parking lot! 
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