Ever heard of “highway hypnosis”? If you never went over it in American Driver’s Ed, it’s the phenomenon during which we tend to zone out while driving on long, repetitive stretches of highway or on routes we’ve taken a thousand times. It’s that feeling of pulling into your driveway and having very little recollection of actually getting there. Suffice it to say, going into pure autopilot mode on the road isn’t ideal. It’s not safe, and we tend to ignore important signage, like speed limits. One high-traffic area in Wisconsin just debuted a new, eye-catching speed limit The Outagamie County Recycling and Solid Waste facility in Appleton gets a lot of through-traffic. Big trucks, commercial haulers, and plenty of civilian cars make their way through the facility on any given day. Keeping a low posted speed limit helps keep everyone safe. Usually, in places like this, you’d see speed limits of 15, 10, or even 5 miles per hour. Outagamie County went in a slightly more offbeat direction: 17.3 mph. No, it’s not a typo. See for yourself: View this post on Instagram 17.3 mph: Not a typo, not a joke The sign isn’t just for laughs. It’s not a temporary fixture meant to get a few likes on social media or encourage people to stop for photo ops. Its purpose is far more important: to get people to pay attention. The unusual number causes people to do a double-take. Instead of eyes glazing over at yet another 15 mph limit, the 17.3 sticks out like a sore thumb and makes drivers’ brains perk up—and hopefully, their feet ease off the gas. Kraig Van Groll, the site’s solid waste superintendent, said the sign is working, per Supercar Blondie: “We’ve definitely seen positive engagement and behavior changes across the site. That includes residents using the site daily, people visiting on tours, and commercial users operating here regularly. If nothing else, it’s really opened the door for more conversations around overall site safety and awareness for all users of the site.” Jordan Hiller, recycling and solid waste program coordinator, told WBAY-TV that the sign has caused a bit of an “uproar” on social media—in a good way. People get a kick out of it, and it has ultimately done its job: drawing more attention to road safety around the facility. Not just Wisconsin: Odd speed limits are becoming more common While major roads and highways will probably stick with nice, round speed limits, smaller areas—shopping centers, parking lots, private facilities—are turning more and more to eye-catching numbers like Outagamie’s 17.3. A shopping center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, features an 8.2 mph speed limit: This speed limit sign I saw in a parking lot which is exactly 8.2 miles per hour. byu/SackJnyder inmildlyinteresting Another user on Reddit spotted an 18 mph speed limit: An oddly specific speed limit I came across byu/dhruchainzz inmildlyinteresting Some areas are resorting to even more unusual and eye-popping methods, with speed limits that include fractions. This one was featured on Denver local news: a parking lot with an official posted speed of 6 and 7/8 mph: Safety officials have all kinds of methods to try to keep distracted drivers focused The science of being behind the wheel is fascinating and often studied. Tons of experiments and studies were conducted on how to get drivers to slow down in certain areas before we came up with radar signs that tell drivers their speed in real time, for example. That visual feedback has been shown to be effective at reducing speeds. Roads in America are also full of speed bumps, rumble strips, and reflectors designed to break drivers’ autopilot patterns. It’s part psychology and part neuroscience; a big reason we slip into autopilot mode, or highway hypnosis, has to do with the way our brain waves work. According to Radar Sign, “Shifting a driver from a Theta ‘autopilot’ state to a Beta ‘engaged’ state requires a trigger, identified by the Reticular Activator (RA), responsible for categorizing sensory input.” Simply put, one of the best ways to keep drivers safe on the road is to present them with something unusual: an input that disrupts the expected pattern. It could be a radar sign, a strip in the road that causes your tires to gently buzz, or now, a speed limit sign so bizarre you can’t help but look twice. The post 23, 11, 17.3: Why oddly numbered speed limit signs are on the rise everywhere appeared first on Upworthy.