Why did the UAE base much of their road signage on the UK?

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RJDG14
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Why did the UAE base much of their road signage on the UK?

Post by RJDG14 »

Considering that it's not a Commonwealth country, I'm surprised how many of the road signs in the United Arab Emirates seem to be strongly modelled on signs in Britain. Does anyone here know why they made the decision to copy our signs, and when this decision was made?
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Re: Why did the UAE base much of their road signage on the UK?

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The UAE/Trucial States were British protectorate until Dec 1971.
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Re: Why did the UAE base much of their road signage on the UK?

Post by JohnnyMo »

Other than the colours being reversed between Primary and Motorway the font of Greek signage is similar to the UK. Having done the research on how to make signs clear and easy to read it is not that suppressing some other countries adopt/copy British signage. I am sure the same could be said from French or US.

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Re: Why did the UAE base much of their road signage on the UK?

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Yup, if you are going to introduce a new signing system you might as well adopt one already in use.
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Re: Why did the UAE base much of their road signage on the UK?

Post by orudge »

Many Middle Eastern countries also use British-style 3-pin plugs (BS1363).
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Re: Why did the UAE base much of their road signage on the UK?

Post by JoshBostock01 »

JohnnyMo wrote: Sat Mar 19, 2022 08:58 Other than the colours being reversed between Primary and Motorway the font of Greek signage is similar to the UK. Having done the research on how to make signs clear and easy to read it is not that suppressing some other countries adopt/copy British signage. I am sure the same could be said from French or US.

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Greek motorway signage is pretty much just a direct lift from German autobahn signage. The only obvious difference is that they use green instead of blue. I think Germany's signs are both the easist to understand and the most aesthetically pleasing in Europe so I don't blame them!
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Re: Why did the UAE base much of their road signage on the UK?

Post by bothar »

orudge wrote:Many Middle Eastern countries also use British-style 3-pin plugs (BS1363).
Although you have to wonder if the plugs used actually have fuses in them.

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Re: Why did the UAE base much of their road signage on the UK?

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RJDG14 wrote: Fri Mar 18, 2022 21:44 Considering that it's not a Commonwealth country, I'm surprised how many of the road signs in the United Arab Emirates seem to be strongly modelled on signs in Britain. Does anyone here know why they made the decision to copy our signs, and when this decision was made?
When I was working in Germany, an Aussie colleague of mine told me tha thre were two kinds of Brit - one who hardly ever ventured out of their home town and one who coudl be found anywhere in the world. The latter group includes large numbers of consultants in many fields. The use of British-style road signs suggests to me that the UAE had hired a Britich consultancy to advise them on road sign design so they took the British signs as a basis, made appropriate moidifications and presented that to the UAE authorities. It shoud be remembered that the British road sign requirements are well documented and it si quitre possible that the UAE specified that any reports must be in English (rather than French, German or Russian). Of course, there might be a small thing like copyright, but that can be negotiated.
JoshBostock01 wrote: Sun Mar 20, 2022 00:43 Greek motorway signage is pretty much just a direct lift from German autobahn signage. The only obvious difference is that they use green instead of blue. I think Germany's signs are both the easist to understand and the most aesthetically pleasing in Europe so I don't blame them!
The Greeks probably hired a German consulting firm.
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Re: Why did the UAE base much of their road signage on the UK?

Post by ravenbluemoon »

Iceland use the UK's Transport typeface on their speed limit signs and their directional signs. The style of the rest of the signage is home grown, or taken from typical Nordic/Euro signage.

Danish signage also uses Transport, but it isn't quite obvious because of the extra spacing between the letters, like on this sign. The speed limit signs may look a little more familar though.
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Re: Why did the UAE base much of their road signage on the UK?

Post by WhiteBlueRed »

Personally, to me it looks more like they based their signage on South African signage, especially that they have warning signs for Give Way and STOP signs, consisting of them inside of a standard warning triangle.
They use red and white for "chevron" signs at sharp bends, just like in South Africa, instead of black and white like in the UK.
At zebra crossings, they use a standard "Give Way" sign and a plate with a white pedestrian symbol on a red background below it, just like in South Africa, instead of Belisha beacons like in the UK.
Also, their markings follow South African practice (single dashed lines to signify "Give Way"), and they even have 4-way stop junctions.
There are just too many things they share in common when it comes to road signs, and for this reason I'm not going to post every single one of them.
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Re: Why did the UAE base much of their road signage on the UK?

Post by Vierwielen »

WhiteBlueRed wrote: Tue Mar 22, 2022 20:04 Personally, to me it looks more like they based their signage on South African signage, especially that they have warning signs for Give Way and STOP signs, consisting of them inside of a standard warning triangle.
They use red and white for "chevron" signs at sharp bends, just like in South Africa, instead of black and white like in the UK.
At zebra crossings, they use a standard "Give Way" sign and a plate with a white pedestrian symbol on a red background below it, just like in South Africa, instead of Belisha beacons like in the UK.
Also, their markings follow South African practice (single dashed lines to signify "Give Way"), and they even have 4-way stop junctions.
There are just too many things they share in common when it comes to road signs, and for this reason I'm not going to post every single one of them.
At least they do not appear to have used the original South African metric-unit road signs. Pre-metrication South African roadsigns were loosly based on pre-Warboys British road signs. When metrication was introduced, they used white on blue where the Vienna Convention woudl use black on white. The result was that a 50 km/h minimum speed limit and a 50 km/h maximum speed limit were identical apart from the red ring on the maximum speed limit. Once the reflective rid ring had been bleached by the sun, th eminimum na dmacimum speed limits were soemtime indistinguishabel in the - both appeared as a dark disk with a "50" on it in white!
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