Have all the mile marker 69 signs been replaced with 68.99?!

On my way back from Denver last weekend I awoke to the unique site of a mile marker with a .99 on it.

As we traveled another mile I pondered whether I had ever seen a mile marker that had a .99 on it before. I thought, "Man, that must be a new thing they're doing." and then I proceeded to try and figure out WHY they would do such a thing.

Keep in mind I had just woken up, or my mind may have come to the following conclusion sooner.

As we approached the the next marker I noticed it was mile #68 and I realized that the previous marker I had seen would have been for Mile Marker 69.

And then it all made sense!

The reason it was marked with a .99 was so that you would still know what area of the highway you were on, BUT you wouldn't bee tempted to steal it!

In case you didn't know 69 is a term used to describe a position during sexual intercourse.

To confirm my facts, (about the sign, not the position) I called CDOT and spoke to Ashley Mohr, who explained to me that our Highway Maintenance Crew got tired of always having to replace MM 69 signs after they were stolen so they decided to start marking them 68.99.

This has been happening for ages. I remember seeing MM 69 signs in my friends basements, bedrooms & garages while I was growing up. Even Texas had a hard time keeping their Interstate signs up after they they installed I-69 signs for their new highway in 2011.

If you're lucky you may still run across one on the back highways of Colorado because as Mohr explained some of them are hard to get to and not as easily stolen as the one I passed by outside of town.

She also explained that one of the other highly stolen road signs here in Colorado are for Moose Crossings and that they actually had to CHANGE the name of Colorado Highway 666 back in 2003 to Hwy 491, because SO many signs were being stolen!

One of our listeners Tami mentioned this is a problem with MM420 as well and Mohr says,

With MM 420 it's a similar situation - people have different numbers that mean something to them (some of which have well-known meanings and other may be more personal, like a birth year) so our mile marker signs provide an easy target for theft!

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