Have you ever come across a downed stop sign and wondered what may have happened?
Who Hit My Stop Sign is a five-part limited investigative podcast series that investigates local road safety, pedestrian infrastructure, and urban planning in Huntingdon.
The narrator, Justine, introduces the series as a quest to discover who knocked a stop sign flat to the ground on a street corner near her home. After receiving an unsatisfactory response from the municipality, she set off on her own to find answers.
As the lead investigator, she channels Columbo with a touch of Nancy Drew to set up a Scooby Doo-esque format for the podcast, which features conversations with Huntingdon residents, urban planning academics, and pedestrian and cyclist safety advocates.
“I wanted to share my thoughts about what road safety means, and I had a lot of different threads that I wanted to pull together,” said Justine. Rather than monologue into a microphone on her own, she created the podcast as a collaborative project designed to spark a genuine discussion about the perils of walking and driving in Huntingdon.
“I do some really heavy personification of the stop sign. I describe her as a tall, dignified redhead who is just showing up to work every day,” Justine explained with a laugh. “I wanted to show people that if this can happen to a stop sign, it can happen to them,” she added.
While not identifying who exactly hit the sign, she reveals the “villain” to be the lack of safe infrastructure such as sidewalks and cycling lanes.
Somewhat of an expert herself, Justine holds a master’s degree in urban planning from Concordia University, where she researched public reactions to bike lanes.
Now, after finding a second stop sign on the ground, she is already planning a second season and is looking for French-speaking voice actors to create a French version.
Who Hit My Stop Sign is available for free and can be found on all major podcast platforms.