Pranksters turned political along a stretch of highway in Texas, when they programmed a roadside warning sign to call Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump a ‘shape-shifting’ reptile.
Motorists along Interstate 30 in Dallas were met with a number of bizarre messages on Tuesday, in the early morning prank targeting three flashing electronic signs from the Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT).
While one large portable sign simply read ‘Bernie For President’, another claimed that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is a reptilian creature.
“Donald Trump is a… shape shifting lizard,” glowing lettering informed drivers approaching Cockrell Hill Road.
According to CBS Local, another sign was hilariously hacked to tell people, “Work is canceled – Go back home.”
While the apparent ‘hack’ may provoke a smile, authorities are taking it seriously and say the person who typed the messages into the machines could face jail.
“Any sort of tampering with that sort of stuff is a third-degree felony and it’s punishable. We’re talking prison time,” TXDOT spokesman Ryan LaFontaine told KXAS-TV.
It must be silly season down at I-30, because just days earlier one of the same signs implored commuters to “Party Hardy Y'all!”
Back in 2009, a number of US state road safety messages were similarly altered to warn drivers about apparent hordes of zombies on the loose.
One incident in Collinsville,Illinois saw jokers manually program a sign along Interstate 255 to warn, “Daily lane closures due to zombies,” reported NBC News.
A copycat prank in Austin, Texas made national news that same year. In that particular incident bemused drivers were told to run from a “Nazi zombie” attack.