Prankster Turning Traffic Lights Around - Programming Them To Blink Red

[matcom]

<snip>

Police in Sunnyvale are keeping an eye out for a highly skilled and frustratingly elusive prankster who has been tampering with city traffic lights for more than three months, authorities said Tuesday.

Whoever is behind the shenanigans has kept a low profile and drawn no attention to himself -- or herself -- while surreptitiously turning traffic lights around to face the wrong way, tampering with control boxes so the lights flash red in all directions and throwing the timing off to stymie motorists, said city spokesman John Pilger.

"There is evidence that whoever is doing it knows what they're doing," Pilger said. "The evidence suggests they're an electrician or have that background. This isn't a high school prank."

Further puzzling investigators is the fact that the traffic trickster used a cherry-picker truck to reach an overhead signal spanning a busy intersection -- apparently without anyone being any the wiser, Pilger said. What's more, the practical joker has effortlessly opened the control boxes that contain the signals' electronic guts.

"No one's seen anything, and they've obviously blended in, and they have a key to the traffic boxes," Pilger said. He noted that such keys are not proprietary to the city, so a key that works elsewhere probably works in Sunnyvale.

The culprit appears to favor Mathilda Avenue, striking at least two intersections there, and also has hit the signals at Caribbean Drive at Twin Peaks not far from Highway 101 and at Wolfe Road and Inverness Way, Pilger said. He could not provide the location of all of the crimes, or a specific time line of when they occurred.

"There are at least half a dozen in our minds that took place," he said. "But there are others that we're still investigating."

In at least one case, the culprit turned an electronic chirper -- which lets the visually impaired know when it is safe to cross -- so it faced the wrong direction.

City officials began noticing the pranks a little more than three months ago while making routine inspections of traffic signals, Pilger said. Police have had little luck identifying the culprit, and so decided to go public in the hope an alert motorist might catch the person in the act and notify them.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/22/BAG38DCEE11.DTL

[iamjoy]

1. This Isn't Funny

Some one could get hurt.

[ucmike]

2. i worked for a highway construction company

most of the equipment is bought off the shelf, so the keys are common and the codes for electronics is usually the default.

you can change the message on those temporary roadside sign boards by going into the control panel (usually unlocked) and either entering a new message, or using one in the menu. everyone i ever saw had the message "SHOW US YOUR TITS" in the menu.

here's the fun part. most of those signs are rented, in a particular area they are almost always rented from one of a few vendors. you can call and ask for the access codes, they'll usually give them to you. they're all the same and are usually the default from the manufacturer becaues rental agencies and construction companies would have huge headaches trying to put unique passcodes on every machine.