LATE TRADES

The funny side

South Africa doesn’t have the monopoly on random acts of theft, it’s just that authorities in other countries sometimes take a more creative approach to addressing it.

Take the US state of Idaho. According to a story from the Associated Press, the state’s authorities were initially stumped about how to deal with the fact that its highway signs denoting 420 miles from the beginning of the road were frequently getting nicked.

This has much to do, apparently, with the fact that among the dope-smoking community of the US, “420” is seen as a code word for the time to light up. So street signs emblazoned with 420 became sought-after highway paraphernalia.

It happened in states like Washington and Colorado too. Weary officials repeatedly tried to replace them.

So Idaho this month reacted by putting up signs saying 419.9 miles on highway 95, which weaves through the state.

Dare we suggest that these new signs might be catnip for the sort of scam artists who spend their days firing off e-mails informing recipients that they’ve been chosen to receive millions of US dollars for their assistance in helping some former minister get his trapped cash out of some country you’ve never heard of?

These scams took their name from section 419 of Nigeria’s criminal code, after all.

Picture: iSTOCK