City's road sign has unexpected message

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - A city traffic sign was supposed to warn drivers about road work on the horizon, but instead it was steering drivers to Jesus.

The road sign on Carlisle, just south of Montgomery, was supposed to say “Lanes closed; seek alternate route.”

But on Monday night it said, “Jesus Loves U John 3:16.”

The city says they had nothing to do with it.

“That wouldn't be anything the city would do, and the barricading company says the same thing. They wouldn't put that on a message,” said Mark Motsko, public information officer for the Department of Municipal Development for Albuquerque.

So, who did leave the message?

The company in charge of the sign says they don’t know, either.

“It had to have been somebody that hacked into the computer, got into the board somehow,” said Jim Key, co-owner of Advantage Barricade and Roadmarks LLC. “It was nobody from our company. We last checked the board at 5:10 yesterday afternoon and it was fine.”

It turns out the computers are pretty easy to hack into. The computer is attached right to the sign and they’re not always locked up, though Advantage Barricade claims that in this case, it was.

It’s that easy access that’s resulted in a wave of hacked road signs across the country, warning of everything from gorillas to flying monkeys to a Zombie apocalypse.

“We just want to make sure that this people understand that [even though] someone might find it humorous, it's actually a safety issue,” Motsko said.

It’s a safety issue for obvious reasons. The signs intended to warn drivers to watch out end up distracting drivers with another message.

The owner of the company in charge of the sign says the heavenly hacker should rethink their ways.

“I think the intent was good; it might have been relayed inappropriately,” Key said. “It's not something that you would use on a sign like that. That's reserved for another time and a different situation.”