Actually, I have been hearing about this more and more. It seems there are a lot of faulty electronic posts that seem to be faulty and then give a shock to either people or dogs walking by. I did hear about one not too long ago regarding a human. It was raining, there was a faulty post, the person touched the post to change the walk signal, and the outcome was not good. Technology does come with it's price. A lot of the electrical in cities is older now and has not been replaced in a very long time. so it doesn't surprise me. We just had our telephone lines replaced on the street outside our home-first time since about 1935!