Found this whilst browsing (updating road signs)

[Bryn666]

http://globonsomeday.blogspot.com/searc ... ad%20signs

A layman's view on how we could perhaps metricate and declutter our road signs to bring them more in line with European conventions. Most of it would be fair enough but a few things that are currently impossible I've felt the need to point out to the author.

I'm not entertaining a metric/imperial debate so I'll just say sod off now if you're going to bring your axe with you.

[Bomag]

http://globonsomeday.blogspot.com/searc ... ad%20signs

Passing over the 10lb, sorry 10kg, chip one can see that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Symbols may save a thousand words, but only if people understand them. We have the most effective balance of words and symbols in Europe, in terms of safety. There may be a case for making some changes but not what is suggested.

[michael769]

Quantum motoring:



Drivers must go both left and right.

[Bryn666]

I've never understood the European convention with that sign, surely it should be a square.

[Keiji]

Oh my god, what is this...

I've read through the latest 6 posts so far, and I have to say I strongly oppose pretty much everything he's suggested - the sole exceptions being:
* this motorway service information sign (of which I would pick the middle variant, i.e. including the word "services")
* and the change from this to this, except I'd put the 500 yards where it should be under the junction number (so as to not clutter the lane designations) and not have his silly motorway exit symbol.

Most of the "improvements" he suggests are removing words or explanations from signs. OK, so the symbolic part of a sign might suffice to uniquely represent its meaning - but let me point out the obvious here. Unlike something like a mathematical proof where the notation doesn't need explaining because anyone reading it either already knows it or is willing to look it up, road signs are for drivers, and a large proportion of drivers would not remember the meaning of symbolic signs, and only have a number of seconds to interpret it! Removing, for example, "give way to oncoming vehicles" might shrink the sign, but people might not know what the sign by itself means, whereas reading the plate tells you exactly what to do.

Sure, drivers are SUPPOSED to know what signs mean, but in practice, that's nowhere near a guarantee.

Also, his suggested "improvements" to bus lane signs are absolutely hideous. In fact, they introduce extra clutter - the extra circle inside the sign! The same goes for the various different type of suggested "end of cycle route" signs - why cross off the cycle lane from a "split pedestrian and cycle path" when the cycle lane isn't there any more and the sign makes no sense with or without a stripe through it? "End of cycle route" is perfectly acceptable - this person just has a crazy obsession with removing words whether or not it would actually help.

[PeterA5145]

Sure, drivers are SUPPOSED to know what signs mean, but in practice, that's nowhere near a guarantee.

Ideally, signs should be largely self-explanatory, so they convey their meaning without any need to study a signing manual. There's no published reference, for example, for the various direction signs used in airports and railway stations. If a sign is widely misunderstood (as opposed to deliberately ignored) it implies that the designers haven't done their job properly.

That is why the "No Left Turn" with a diagonal red bar is far more effective than the white-on-blue "Ahead Only" - and why the current "No Cycling" sign is just plain wrong.

[si404]

I'm not entertaining a metric/imperial debate so I'll just say sod off now if you're going to bring your axe with you.

Most of the changes/proposals on that site seem to relate to metrication (perhaps because most of our signs are close enough to European conventions, if not exactly meeting them). That guy's major axe is metrication...

...but I agree, we've done to to death.

I don't get why GIVE WAY on Give Way signs is removed, but not STOP on Stop signs. I also don't like the use of give way triangles warning of stop signs ahead. I also don't get why end of speed limit signs are "highly recommended" - I can't myself think of a single use for them. Likewise the end of town signs, and having a pictogram of some buildings on town signs.

I also don't get some of the "improvements" as being improvements - on exit signs (other than the rare M25/M2x Junction 2 miles signs), to give an example, it's not an improvement - adding clutter for no other reasons than standardisation.

The worst thing is the lack of understanding as to what blue circles mean (as well as the you must go both left and right sign that is above, see the signs for bus lanes). Happily turning optional cycle lanes into mandatory ones isn't a sensible move. There's a reason why we have blue squares/rectangles for most bus lanes/cycle lanes - because we don't want them mandatory for buses/cycles to have to use. A blue circle with a bus in it doesn't ban cars - it just forces buses to use that lane - you need some sort of only plate to ban cars.

In summary - some good ideas (24 hour time on signs, though not for most of the reasons he gives - just the ease of reading one), some diabolically bad ones and lots of mediocre ones that have their pluses and minuses.

[Stevie D]

Why do I get the impression that the only comments he allows are his sycophants? Let's see if he allows my more critical comments to be published!

[Bryn666]

I've managed to post critique. It's down to your tone with these things...

[si404]

- Sign guys, I am right in saying that the only is very important here, else all it means is "buses and cycles must use this lane", rather than "buses and cycles only must use this lane". I don't like either option much, but the "Only" isn't 'nothing but clutter', but then this is a guy who hates text.


- way to change the meaning of the signs, not to mention make them less clear and uglier!

[Erath]

The motorway sign "improvements" made me shudder the most. Keiji is right to state that the services one probably does constitute an improvment, but the gantries he's proposing are awful. Having the lane arrows and distances between destinations completely messes with my head - there's no division to break the image up so my brain can process it in time.

Also, he's using black-on-white panels to indicate motorway services, and then to boot, starts throwing chopsticks around on any sign with a blue patch. That's going to increase sign sizes for many signs, not withstanding the fact that in a strict sense they will all be the start of a motorway unless the legislation is changed. (Am I right in saying there's a legal reason "End of motorway regulations" is used at service station entrances as opposed to the end of motorway symbol?)

All I'll say on his metrications (not getting into the debate vs. imperial as requested) is I don't like his insistances on using 800m and 1500m/1600m in opposition to ¾km and 1½km. My first thought when seeing a destination that's 1600 anything away is that it's on the Moon. 1½ suggests to me that I'll see it in the next 2 to 3 minutes.

[FosseWay]

I agree with most of the other Sabristi's analysis of this. One thing no-one's commented on are the ideas for mandatory following distance signs, which are objectionable on many grounds.

First: is it necessary to mandate a distance? We have laws that can be used to deal with tailgaters already, if the offence is observed by a police officer. If it isn't observed, it can't be prosecuted, whether under a strict liability situation or DWDCA.

Second: if the answer to the above is yes, I don't think the purpose is best served by giving numerical distances. The same is true, in fact, if the following distance is advisory. How many people can reliably estimate 80 metres (or any other short distance for which the car odometer is useless) while travelling at 70 mph? A much better rule of thumb is the 'two-second rule', which can be rendered in concrete form using chevrons (as in the UK) or hard shoulder traits (as in France).

Third: the signs as suggested imply a strict liability, just as red lights and speed limits do. Therefore you MUST NOT infringe the 80-metre exclusion zone between you and the person in front (with possible get-outs for emergencies or being stationary). But there are plenty of occasions on the motorway when speeds significantly below the road's design speed are necessary, without it being an 'emergency'. If 80 m is a sensible following distance at 70 mph, it patently isn't at 30 -- yet according to those signs, we'd still have to leave the same gap.

Fourthly: the author goes on about road sign clutter in various places, yet using this sign would increase clutter to an extent matched only by the spread of Rural 50 Pox. I don't buy his suggestion that these signs (and their associated legal requirement) would only be necessary in certain places. You can get sudden reductions in speed anywhere on the motorway network, for which a decent following distance is needed to avoid a collision. Yes, queues are known to form more readily at some specific locations, but these are generally flagged up to drivers in other ways (ADSs for junctions, warnings of lane drops, 'Queues possible at peak times' signs etc.).

Two other things:

1. I agree with Erath about the units used. If metric signs are used, ADSs should read 2 km (or 1.5 or whatever the distance actually is), not 2000 m. (As an aside, if wholesale change were ever introduced regarding ADSs, I'd also like to see the prescribed distances at which they appear on HQDCs standardised to the same as for motorways. I've never understood why junctions are advertised only 0.5 miles ahead on roads like the A50 and A14, when traffic is moving at the same speed as on motorways.)

2. We could usefully be clearer about signing the name of the locality a road is in/entering. I agree with others that we don't need crossed-out placenames to show you're leaving them -- where this practice exists in other countries, it's generally to signify the end of the urban speed limit, which we do with the NSL (or other (in)appropriate limit) sign. We don't need both. However, we could sign the entry to towns and villages better. Up the road from me, at a junction outside Loughborough proper, before you get to the 30 limit, is a sign that points to 'Town centre'. If you're approaching from that direction, it's about 5 miles since you last passed a sign saying 'Loughborough', and if you didn't know the area you might not be aware that Loughborough is the only appreciable town in the area. Is it that difficult to put 'Loughborough' on a sign if that's where the road goes? Once you're actually in the town, then 'town centre' is fair enough, to distinguish that road from the ring road or anything else.

[Bryn666]

The mandatory distance sign is generally used at tunnels in mainland Europe. One of the reasons was following the Mont Blanc Fire in 1999. By having the distance, vehicles could at least turn around in an emergency (assuming they don't all go nose to tail when stopped). In French tunnels chevrons are painted to demarcate the distance.

Outside of that application, there's little use for them.

(Still, it's got you all talking )

[FosseWay]

The mandatory distance sign is generally used at tunnels in mainland Europe.

In which case, the sign is irrelevant here. We don't really do tunnels of any great length, and those that we do have are both speed-limited to below NSL and in areas of high traffic density, where a mandated distance wouldn't be able to take account of the highly dynamic nature of traffic flows. I don't think I've ever been through the Dartford Tunnel at the stated speed limit -- it's always been slower as a result of traffic density. And as far as I can remember, Dartford is the only tunnel that come remotely close to the kinds of tunnel you mention.

[Bryn666]

The Queensway Tunnel in Liverpool has distance chevrons marked on the road - I think it is part of the Mersey Tunnel By-Laws.

The distance requirement is put in even short tunnels in France, for instance, the A16 at Boulogne has a tunnel of about 600 metres in length but it still has chevrons and a mandatory 70m seperation distance.

Funnily enough, nearly all of our tunnels were all rated as poor or worse in European assessments after the spate of Alpine disasters, with the notable exception of the Mersey Queensway Tunnel which was rated 'acceotable' (Kingsway was one of eight to be rated 'good')... the distance marks were a part of them getting that grade. There is something amusing in a 1930s single carriageway tunnel having more safety provision than a 1960s 'purpose built' tunnel designed for the capital's innermost ring motorway...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1946869.stm

[FosseWay]

The Queensway Tunnel in Liverpool has distance chevrons marked on the road - I think it is part of the Mersey Tunnel By-Laws.

Do you mean their presence on the surface is mandated by the by-laws, or that the by-laws require motorists to obey them on pain of prosecution? If the latter, then my question below applies.

The distance requirement is put in even short tunnels in France, for instance, the A16 at Boulogne has a tunnel of about 600 metres in length but it still has chevrons and a mandatory 70m seperation distance.

Does this mean that if traffic is stationary, vehicles must stop 70 m apart? If they're allowed to bunch up a bit more in very slow-moving traffic, when it gets going again, at what speed does the 70 m rule start to apply again? Perhaps in the French context these are academic questions, but given this country's predilection for automated and arbitrary enforcement, there's scope for a lot of abuse by the authorities and a lot of uncertainty for drivers.

[Nicholas]

All I'll say on his metrications (not getting into the debate vs. imperial as requested) is I don't like his insistances on using 800m and 1500m/1600m in opposition to ¾km and 1½km. My first thought when seeing a destination that's 1600 anything away is that it's on the Moon. 1½ suggests to me that I'll see it in the next 2 to 3 minutes.

Agreed - if metric distances were to be used then either 1½km or 1.5km would be better than 1500m. Plus 1.5 would probably be preferred over 1.6, however, that would require an expensive wholesale repositioning of signs.

[Nicholas]

All I'll say on his metrications (not getting into the debate vs. imperial as requested) is I don't like his insistances on using 800m and 1500m/1600m in opposition to ¾km and 1½km. My first thought when seeing a destination that's 1600 anything away is that it's on the Moon. 1½ suggests to me that I'll see it in the next 2 to 3 minutes.

Agreed - if metric distances were to be used then either 1½km or 1.5km would be better than 1500m. Plus 1.5 would probably be preferred over 1.6, however, that would require an expensive wholesale repositioning of signs.

[scragend]

They would use 1500m rather than 1.5km in France. I'm not sure what the cut off is, I've definitely seen 2000m and maybe 2500m.

[Bryn666]

3000m seems to be the upper limit.