Whether you’re heading off for a cross-country family retreat or just joining friends at the beach for a barbecue, you might want to keep your eyes out this Independence Day holiday weekend. You never know when or where you might run into some odd things along the way – notably some unusual road signs. The right one just might win you a big prize in the Wild Weird and Wacky Street Signs Contest! 

The folks at TheDetroitBureau.com have spotted plenty of them during our travels. Like one we discovered during a recent press drive that warned us of an unlikely danger ahead. 

The Detroit Bureau

Now, we realize, you’ve always been told to keep your eyes on the road, but maybe you’re looking for a place to take a break.

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It is an election year, of course, and it seems like everyone has something to say about politics.

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Sometimes we aren’t quite sure what a sign is trying to tell us – or why.

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Others clearly offer some good – if humorous – advice.

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And sometimes a sign will generate a giggle just by telling us where we are or where we’re going.

The Detroit Bureau

The Detroit Bureau

We’re betting our readers have their own favorites – lots of them, in fact – and we’d love to hear what you’ve come across in your own travels. To add a little encouragement, we are offering some great prizes for the best entries in our Wild, Weird and Wacky Street Names Contest. These include

• A $500 gift certificate from Bridgestone Tires
• A semi-pro digital camera you can take along on your next trip just in case you spot something unusual
• A portable navigation system including real-time traffic advisories
• And some great collectibles from automakers like Nissan and Porsche, among others

The Wild, Weird and Wacky Street Names Contest is co-sponsored by Nissan and Bridgestone. And the results will be posted here.

It’s easy to enter. Simply send your entry to StreetNamesContest@GMail.com. Yes, you’ll have a leg up on your competition with a photo – and one that hasn’t been retouched. We’ll also want to know where you saw that wild, weird or wacky sign.

Here are the rest of our simple rules:

1. All signs need to be real and verifiable. Any that we at TheDetroitBureau.com cannot validate will be rejected. 

2. While they might make us laugh, doctored pics will be grounds for immediate rejection, and may lead to having your PhotoShop license revoked. 

The Detroit Bureau

3. Where duplicate signs are supplied, winners will be selected by dumb luck. 

4. This is an absolutely non-scientific contest. We’ll base all choices on how much we laugh or gasp, how much we shock our families and friends, and eventually, we’ll ask our readers to vote on 10 to a dozen finalists. But in the end, all decisions are those of the editors of TheDetroitBureau.com and are non-disputable.  Digital entries will not be returned, though we may forward them to our friends on Facebook. 

5. We encourage our employees and immediate family members to weigh in with offerings of their own, but they are ineligible to win, as are employees and immediate family of TheDetroitBureau.com’s partners and advertisers.

6. Oh, and please do not submit photo files larger than 1 megabyte.