Or did road works in Italy used to be marked out with little black balls with a flaming wick on top, looking a little similar to a cartoon bomb?
Can anyone else remember these or did I just think them up?
No you didn’t make it up. I remember them well and they did look exactly like a cartoon bomb, well without the word bomb written on them.
YES hARRY That was how they used to do
it in the early years,and as niel said they used to look like
the ACME bomb,
Dont know why, but this has reminded me of the " bonfire girls "
I remember when my lift pump packed up on my Saviem Berliet thing in Yugoslavia. it was pitch black and I was on the “motorway” Not going to do any repairs that night so went to bed. All I had was an emergency cooker, a tin of that jelly that you could cook a meal on. I put that on the hard shoulder and lit it.
The next morning when I woke up there were no jugheads buried in the back of my tilt, so they must have seen my emergency flare 
Harry Monk:
Or did road works in Italy used to be marked out with little black balls with a flaming wick on top, looking a little similar to a cartoon bomb?Can anyone else remember these or did I just think them up?
yeah they certainly had them up to the late 80s - did you never see the blokes placing them out? stripey jumper, wooly hat and burglar’s mask, tiptoed around everywhere 
Harry, you wern’t seeing things but they were only around at Christmas. What you saw were Christmas puddings covered in Brandy. The whole thing was sponsored by the owners of Chorisio truckstop. Follow the flaming puddings and Bingo…there you were parked outside the resteraunt.
Speaking of the christmas puddings, can anyone remember in the couple of weeks running up to xmas when you were returning via the Blanc tunnel, the girls that used to hand out xmas puddings and an xmas cake at the tunnel peage on the Italian side.
Paul
Remember those well, they used to smoke like a goodun and spin all over the place when the speading italian’s cut in late and caught them.
No puddsat the Blanc now, it was a CD wallet last christmas { made in China, no doubt }
still the same.
i was there back in march…italy doesnt change…
i went through roadwork and saw the small bombs onthe road
Harry Monk:
Or did road works in Italy used to be marked out with little black balls with a flaming wick on top, looking a little similar to a cartoon bomb?Can anyone else remember these or did I just think them up?
Deffo not your imagination Harry, I remember them too.
Those ‘bombs’ were certainly in use for the whole of the 80s.
mappo mentioned that the ‘bombs’ reminded him of the bonfire girls, I remember that it was quite difficult to tell the bonfire in the paint-can from one of these road safety features. 
Those ‘bombs’ reminded me more of the cap badges worn by the Carabinieri though. 
Who mentioned Bonfire alley…spent a few times down there whilst parked at Pops
And yes malc…its not a form of senile dementia…so dont worry…they were real…
definately there during the 90’s as well, along with fire sticks about 2 foot long that were lit in a row.
They had to have something noticable coz the traffic cones were only about 6 inches high IIRC
They are the modern day equiverlent of the
bonfire , these candles are also used by the
police in germany, when it warrents such
action.