Botched Roadsigns

[Bryn666]

A77(M)?
Again
And again
I dread to imagine how many more.

Seems to be an Irvine special that. Maybe you just can't extend Scottish motorways without referring to them as an Ax(M).

[Euan]

A77(M)?
Again
And again
I dread to imagine how many more.

Seems to be an Irvine special that. Maybe you just can't extend Scottish motorways without referring to them as an Ax(M).

The "A77(M)" sign in Irvine used to really confuse me when I was younger. I presumed it was referring to the M77 near Kilmarnock, but it was before I properly understood the Ax(M) notation.

[c2R]

Don't know if this has already been posted (and I'm not about to go through nigh on 7900 posts in the thread to check!), but I spotted this on my way home earlier: https://goo.gl/maps/FVU9WFiZYZD2

For those who don't know the area, it's on the stretch of the A120 between M11 Junction 8 and the A10. More specifically on one of the many roundabouts along the Bishop's Stortford bypass and most definitely not anywhere in Zone 2, let alone remotely near the A20.

Yup, that one, and the white one at the roundabout before on the primary route....

[Conekicker]

Utterly clueless "design", not that such a monstrosity warrants the use of that word.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.39001 ... 6656?hl=en

[lefthandedspanner]

Don't know if this has already been posted (and I'm not about to go through nigh on 7900 posts in the thread to check!), but I spotted this on my way home earlier: https://goo.gl/maps/FVU9WFiZYZD2

For those who don't know the area, it's on the stretch of the A120 between M11 Junction 8 and the A10. More specifically on one of the many roundabouts along the Bishop's Stortford bypass and most definitely not anywhere in Zone 2, let alone remotely near the A20.

Reminds me of an item in On The Hour:

But first, we're getting news of chaos for drivers on the A1 as today's high temperatures cause the road to buckle. The Northumbrian stretch (sic) between Durham and Newcastle has been found in Shropshire; the A1(M) at Doncaster is now part of the Telford bypass; and seven miles of the congested Lincolnshire section have bent due east as far as Norwich and are expected to reach the North Sea by midnight.

This is clearly a bit of the old London-Dover road that's ended up in Hertfordshire.

[Burns]

Yo, check this out.

[Beardy5632]

Yo, check this out.

A different way of writing "For 81 miles"?

[Burns]

Yo, check this out.

A different way of writing "For 81 miles"?

It certainly feels like it when you're driving that road.

[Johnathan404]

It's all about your positioning.

[Rob590]

This on the B5010 in Derbyshire is impressive: as well as taking a somewhat original approach to squeezing the place names into the sign, it also seems to get them wrong. At least, the sign gives Aston and Weston different names to the sign at the exit, which goes with 'on' rather than 'upon'; Google Maps suggests that Aston-on-Trent and Weston-on-Trent are correct.

[Chris5156]

It's all about your positioning.

Oh dear god.

There’s also the consideration that if you’re abbreviating “Segensworth”, you don’t need an apostrophe between the N and S because you haven’t removed any letters there.

[Johnathan404]

The best way to solve people not knowing which lane to get into is definitely to repeatedly shout 'get in lane' at them and not to tell them which lane to get into.

Duplicated destinations are really bugging me now:
M27 J5
A3(M) J5

[DB617]

I've always assumed GET IN LANE is to direct you to read the road markings, but it's amazing how often they're rubbed away to the point of uselessness, positioned long past the point of no return or covered up by traffic. When I work in new places the locals could spot me from a mile away because of the late, confused lane changes... Which sometimes get reversed shortly after. In particular I recall the hamburger junction of the A4 and A332 warns of the two right lanes being for the hamburger far too late to allow one to switch safely.

On the subject of getting in lane, the VOG council's notorious traffic department installed these helpful signs on the A48, A4050 and A4232: https://goo.gl/maps/wzWWYnKYrhD2
They are so tiny you can only read them if crawling past in the lane for the M4. Also, the A423 is in Oxfordshire and oddly that mistake exists only on one sign of the five arms. Zero for effort, zero for execution.

[Stevie D]

Duplicated destinations are really bugging me now:
M27 J5
A3(M) J5

There is a real epidemic - Grimston Bar.
The stupid thing is that in those two you've linked to, they have got the motorway destination panel spread across 2 lanes so they do know how to do it ... so why can't they do the same for the non-motorway exits?

[Stevie D]

I've always assumed GET IN LANE is to direct you to read the road markings, but it's amazing how often they're rubbed away to the point of uselessness, positioned long past the point of no return or covered up by traffic.

Markings on the road are hopeless and should never be used for critical information like that. There's too much to take in, especially when you need to look at the markings across multiple lanes. The usual need to abbreviate destinations makes them difficult to process, visibility of them is poor and is worse to non-existent when other traffic is covering them, in wet conditions and/or where the light is in the wrong place they can be masked to the point of illegibility. And, as you say, they are susceptible to being rubbed off over time.

[Bryn666]

Duplicated destinations are really bugging me now:
M27 J5
A3(M) J5

There is a real epidemic - Grimston Bar.
The stupid thing is that in those two you've linked to, they have got the motorway destination panel spread across 2 lanes so they do know how to do it ... so why can't they do the same for the non-motorway exits?

2016 regs have explicitly shown shared lanes. Here's a fictional example:

[RichieGraham]

I'm not going to lie; some of the botches on here are quite specific and almost nit-picky. (I'm not saying that they aren't wrong, and that they should always follow the rules, but if they get the correct point across does it really matter?)

That said...

On the subject of getting in lane, the VOG council's notorious traffic department installed these helpful signs on the A48, A4050 and A4232: https://goo.gl/maps/wzWWYnKYrhD2
They are so tiny you can only read them if crawling past in the lane for the M4. Also, the A423 is in Oxfordshire and oddly that mistake exists only on one sign of the five arms. Zero for effort, zero for execution.

... oh my word - whoever signed off on that one needs to be shot by snipers (because only snipers have decent scopes on their guns to be able to find somebody who is evidentally somewhat small). Reminds me of some of those roadside posters you get when you drive into small villages holding a coffee morning where they think an A4 piece of paper by the road is large enough to be seen properly.

[SouthWest Philip]

Talking of undersized, I wonder if this masterpiece...
https://goo.gl/maps/XzfhSb6XgHP2
...is still around?

Aside from being too small, it's wrong in just about every other aspect too.
* Typo upgrading the road from B-road to A-road.
* Flag sign erroneously placed in advance of the junction.
* "5th Circular Road"

[DB617]

Culverhouse Cross and the entire Cardiff Peripheral Distributor Road is a nightmarish meeting of three authorities, none of which are very impressive: SWTRA, Cardiff Council and the Vale of Glamorgan Council. SWTRA in particular will disappoint the sign enthusiast with their neglect for the A4232 and Cardiff as a whole. At some point presumably a youngster has tagged a lot of signs with 'CCFC' and by at some point, I mean these tags have been present since I was a child, so only about 10 years after the road's construction. At present the tagged sign pictured has also been part of one of the road's many fatal crashes in which either a compact car or an HGV (it was never clear which as you couldn't get anywhere near the junction to see for an entire day) ploughed over it, and is now at a very funny angle and separated into its four constituent panels. A filthy flag sign marking the M4 J33 eastbound onslip has survived just as long, despite the junction being remodelled by SWTRA a few years ago adding free-flow links.

It really grinds my gears that the road is allowed to remain in such a poor state as for anyone visiting Cardiff for the first time, these details give the impression that the place is a s**thole which is mostly no longer the case.

Edit: This rabbit hole is going deeper. These guys were added to M4 J33 following the remodelling. Are we in the butt end of Wales known for having extremely good eyesight or is the A4232 actually a gruesomely poorly signed road in general? Tell me how a visitor is supposed to read what's on that sign before committing (and, knowing the PDR, smashing fatally into a neighbouring vehicle)?

[jgharston]

Every time I travel this route I am so tempted to stop and rub off the patch on these signs on the A614 to see what's underneath.