Right sign, wrong colour

Highway sign on the road from Merritt to Kamloops

In British Columbia, as in many other places around the world, summer is the time when the roads get ripped up for maintenance. (It makes sense, that is when all of the tourist are out hoping to use the roads.)

Highway sign detail

What problem do I have with this sign? The colour. Not the colour of the sign. The blue and yellow are used by the British Columbia government to identify government services, and in this case, a piece of road work paid by the government. (As if road work in the province might be paid for by someone else? Maybe the state of North Carolina will do it, just on a whim.)

I have a problem with the red "COMPLETED" banner. That is exactly what I would expect to see, red background and all capitals, if the project was cancelled. I reminds me of the banners you see across the sign at the theatre box office when the performance is cancelled due to illness etc.

Red will certainly get attention, but the cautionary note that is associated with red does not really say completed to me.