UK launches major road signage review
Transport minister Rosie Winterton has announced a major review of the UK's road signs, and is inviting the unwashed masses to chip in their two bits' worth as to how Blighty's signage might be improved. As the Department for Transport press release explains, the review will "will ensure that traffic signs keep pace with the …
Perhaps they could finally get rid of the sign I know of which reads "Caution - new road layout" which has been in place for something over a decade!
What a great idea, we do not, currently have enough road signs, and it should be noted that they are not "harmonized" with those of the EU.
Last point, while we are at it, we should put the signs on the right hand side of the road, in preparation for a phased move to comply with the European Union standard.
And throw away thirty or forty years' worth of recognition? Very smart...
Oh, wait, this is a *rebranding* exercise. Same signs, but piddled on by a designer.
It probably makes more sense just to remove every second and third sign you come to, and get rid of the visual clutter that way - at least in city centres.
Neil
(Thumbs down, because Paris wants the old icons back!)
Are they planning to make every driver re-sit some sort of test to prove that they understand any new signs? As recognising signs is a part of the current test it would be irresponsible to allow people to drive when they might not be able to understand them.
I thought the UK was signature to the "Vienna Convention on Road Traffic" treaty, which includes "Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals". I'm not expecting much out of this. Sounds more a of a money wasting exercise to me.
IMO UK road signs are pretty good and clear. I have just been driving in France and theirs are not bad, but unlike ours, lack useful detail until you get right to the turning.
Having said that why does the 'no cycling' sign simply show a bicycle? - surely a bicycle with rider and a red stripe through it/them would be more logical??????
That the review will conclude that all traffic signs should be re-designed to include CCTV and ANPR, along with periodically displaying a little green environmental homily?
The graphic simplicity of the signage is sorted, so the only things left to do are to reduce the number of signs and clutter. The road where I work has THREE give ways signs at the end, all in front of each other for no apparent reason!
Electronic signs are a nice idea, but since Manchester is inundated by a network of illuminated car park space signs that haven't worked for 5 or 6 years, the last thing we need are more of these.
Road markings have gone mad over the last decade. Junctions are plastered with red and green coatings which last about a year before they disintegrate and become a confused mess.
It's all well and good new technology and signage being implemented, but it's local councils that are the weak link since they have no funding.
Forget a road sign review, how about spending some money on road resurfacing. Manchester's roads are crater filled.
the first picture of a road sign with the BSoD displayed on it.
Remove about 80% of the bloody signs!
I regularly drive a route where a dual carriageway turns into two single carriageway roads at a roundabout.
In the 500m before the junction, in a single carriageway of the dual carriageway, there are THIRTY SEVEN signs...
If someone installed landmines 10m from the roundabout and installed the necessary signs, carnage would result - because no one would see the warning signs in that mass of poorly considered visual information overload.
These days I tend to attempt to simply blank out the roadside rubbish as it causes dangerous distraction.
On familiar routes I try and concentrate on other road users, road conditions and my ECM systems. On unfamiliar routes I also attend to route instructions.
Do I really NEED 3 'roundabout' signs, plus 6 'distance' warning markers for a clearly visible roundabout? Does ANYONE?
I don't think so... and of the other 28 signs, possibly 6 might be of some use.
Yet nearby, in the same county, there are, in urban areas, sprawling acreages of nearly deserted dual carriageways, punctuated at ridiculously short intervals by vast featureless roundabouts where it's pitifully easy to get completely lost if you don't know the area like the back of your hand - because there are virtually NO road signs whatsoever! Unlike the overkill available a mere 25 miles away.
It strikes me that's what's needed is a comprehensive survey of what signs are where, because it appears no one actually KNOWS.
And the abolition of signage installed because some obscure and ridiculous 'rule' mandates it is 'necessary'. The final decision for sign placement should be based on whether the information is essential to the majority of road users.
Oh, and the new icons are indeed crap. If it ain't fcuked, why 'fix' it?
How about a review of what the signs are saying?
I am fed up of seeing non-sensical signs, that are actually correct, eg 'no right turn' qualified by, unless you are a Bus, Taxi or Cycle, into a normal, un-restricted road, forcing me to go once round the block so as to approach from a different direction, where-upon it is perfectly okay to turn.
doesn't it read just as well if you write "UK launches major road sign review"? Signage is just a word invented by sign companies to make what they do sound cleverer, isn't it?
Anyone else driving along the wonderful highways and by-ways of the UK notice the number of signs has gone up? Notice that it's usually one team puts up a sign to highlight something, then some unrelated team turn up 2 months later and put another sign up, but the second one is usually about 2 feet behind the first!
About 2 months later some knob will call the local council and demand that a sign goes up to warn road users that, I dunno Fraggles may be crossing the roads and everyone needs to slow down. So another team turns up and puts the Beware of Fraggles sign, about 4 feet in front of the first one!
Come 2 years later, there are about 15 signs, mostly contradicting each other, in the space of 75 yards of road!
Fantastic!
Lets change from miles to kilometers and drive on the right hand side instead of the left.
More inline with Europe.
Could we not "kill two birds with one stone" here and program the proposed Honeywell anti-missile droids to circle the roads around airports broadcasting meaningful traffic messages to in-car sound systems (or even get Honeywell to design and sell (!) dashboard-mounted HUD-solutions to UK motorists ?), whilst waiting for the next aircraft to take-off / land ?
They'll have to be careful not to get the two functions confused, mind you, ...... otherwise we'll get a lot of blinded motorists and (perhaps) a missile strike on a built-up strech of the M25 !!
1. They will ignore any suggestions by people who actually use the roads, in favour of the opinions of the board of a PFI-led consortium who will actually be contracted to deliver the new signs, so why bother?
2. What they should really do is remove most of them, and replace the rest with the ones with the plastic poles. That's it. I don't need to know this is a 'no phoning people whist driving remember' zone.
3. Then they should remove the christmas lights at every rural road junction and roundabout. It's easier to see traffic at night *without* washing everything in orange.
4. err, that's it.
In the past few years a special font has been designed for traffic signs, with the aim of being readable at a greater distance. It apparently started in US Academia, and, from what I recall, seems to live up to the claims.
Google is your friend, of course, but there certainly are websites out there.
The font we use in the UK was designed a long time ago. This is an area where the improvement would be pretty simple, though only on new signage.
There's probably a fat contract in it for a bunch of consultants somewhere. I mean, would you trust anything the Americans told you?
Datamatrix style 2D barcodes embedded in road signs- maybe only visible to IR cameras or suchlike. Should contain location and unique-sign-identifier number. Maybe even a standardised text version of the sign's contents.
The camera can then estimate speed, improve GPS (with a known fixed location to work with you can make GPS more accurate in a similar manner to DGPS), and so on. Entirely passive, so no expensive power cables/solar panels (or potential for vehicle-tracking) and it'd make it far easier for digital-vision systems to find where they're going. Even better, it'd work in crowded urban environments (unlike GPS, which seems to fall over exactly when you least want it to...).
And it could be used to get cars to warn Paedophile passengers to stay away from these areas (maybe between certain times like school leaving times) to stop them being tempted or falsely accused.
Easy enough to do, green, helps nerds AND repels paedophiles? Truely a fantastic solution!
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This is likely to descend into a horrendous RFID-vehicle-trackers-under-every-sign "Big Chaffeur" system of road-surveilance.
On the obligatory green front, completely redoing every sign in the UK does really seem like the most sensible solution to global warming...
We need to remove as many signs as possible. I'm sure that a lot of them serve useful purposes but with new signs going up all the time it can take so long to scan signs for the information you are looking for that you've either missed the turn or rolled into the junction and hit someone.
Whilst they are at it can they please stop lighting up the motorway signs with useless, obvious, information. When its foggy, or there is a lot of spray, the last thing I want is a huge illuminated sign distracting me with the words "Slow down Fog/Spray". Give me useful info or stay unlit.
I don't think there's any doubt that the official UK road sign design standards are very clear. The problem is placing daft signs in daft places. However the big problem with the UK system is that it's neither green nor uses the Mittelschrift font like they use in Europe... so I think this is all a cunning plan to get rid of our signage and adopt a European standard.
It'll be interesting to see whether they replace existing signs in ways that make it easier to switch to driving on the right in the future.
So what do we want, the right to drive on the correct side of the road whilst swigging pints of beer and pounds of crisps, or cheap cars and 400ml girlie-shaped glasses of bier?
Stick "NuNu Land" in a triangle. That is all.
On the M6 - Sign not in use. Every time I read it I feel like I might be engulfed in a puff of logic paradox.
removing and reproducing millions of signs is supposed to "reduce emissions" how?
Government should have more important things to worry about.. I love the "road liable to subsidence" signs. What am I meant to do with that information?
Fit thrusters to the car floor? Brake if I see a giant hole? (BEcuase, normally I'd assume it was an illusion and just try to drive over it..)
If you;re stationary on the motorway and the ground starts to sink, what can you do? *Sigh*
Just look at how confused El Reggians are with the new signages. I preferred the old flame and heart icons. Japanimation = overkill.
I am amazed that we don't have enough money for road building or basic repairs but expensive hi-tech signs which can tell us in real-time how crap our roads are pop up all over the place.
I can only assume there are some serious backhanders or political funding coming from those profiting from manufacture and installation of this stuff.
Very simple - stop the overhead matrix signs saying 'NN minutes to Junction X'. This information is meaningless because X could be 1 or 15 miles away.
Just tell me the current average speed (say) 2 miles in front.
PS Stupid icons
PPS Stupid fixed width page
Over a decade? That's nothing. The New forest is over 900 years old.
There's a standing joke that the UK removed all its road signs in 1939 to thwart nazi invaders - and never bothered putting them back - it's funny because it's very close to the truth.
My biggest bugbear is the impossiblity of knowing what streets you're going past. There's almost never a decent sign (by decent I mean US/AU/NZ style 9 foot pole on the corner with reflective fingerboard hanging off it) that can be read at 20mph, let alone 30mph. It's no wonder satnavs are flying off the shelves here.
Mine's the one with all the maps in it.
If this is coming out of D.f.T. then the signs preceding it should probably be "U-Turn likely" and "Caution: Treacherous Conditions"
That's one of the more recent signs I've seen. With new signs like that I think we'd be better sticking with the old ones.
Haha! Here in Germany you get that sort of signage. You got a stretch of Motorway with lots of Potholes? Stick up a sign saying so, everyone knows the road is a bag of sh1te and they still drive like twunts.
At least we can drive a fast as we want. Still the wrong side of the road though.
... putting a speed limit sign on the back of or on the same post as speed cameras? Would that not help prevent the oohfuckbugger what's the speed limit breaking maneuver just prior to the cameras?
Also how about instead of those patronising "Spray Slow Down" electronic signs why not say "Spray: Use Headlights" or "Fog: Use Fog Lights" as some drivers tend to need someone else to make the big decisions such as to when to use which lights for them?
Or they could just make them show jubs all the time?
They are going to make us drive on the right eventually.
They are going to do it gradually, buses and lorries first.
We have the biggest financial crisis in 300 years, and an idle silly nu labour pussy wants to make the roads prettier. Of course she can't say that taking down signs could make roads safer, as they've been busy plastering roads with spurious signs in the name of safety, and successfully distracting drivers' attention for years. (I example "Slow" painted on the road, which used to indicate to me to drop down a gear - but no longer, since safety enthusiasts started painting ranks of them). And we mustn't forget the scameras, which oblige you anyway to not look at the road as you drive. Hence more nu labour dissembling - and private profit at public expense for some lucky pigopolist of the government's choosing.
The nu labour way - look as if you're working. When anybody asks, just give them some mouth.
1) Speed limit signs should incorporate RFID so that cars' cruise control systems can automatically adjust themselves.
Actually that's the only change I'd insist on, but while I'm here, I'll deal with some other niggles:
2) The "Give Way To Oncoming Vehicles" needs a redesign. Are you the red arrow going up, or the black one going down? That the sign always carries sub-titles is proof enough that the meaning is unclear.
3) As mentioned by another, the "Riding of Pedal Cycles Prohibited" should have a red diagonal stripe. (As indeed should most prohibition signs.)
4) The "No Vehicles Carrying Explosives" sign should show a vehicle carrying an Apple-style bomb, rather than a bale of hay.
How about putting some speed limit signs on motorways? I've lived in this country for seven years and I still don't know what the speed limit is...
With the actual permitted speed ACCOMPANYING the camera graphic. Or better yet, scrap the cameras altogether and recycle the components to give everyone in the UK er...a free webcam. This would happily massively reduce roadside distractions and permit sensible[1] motorists to once again concentrate fully on local road conditions, traffic levels and so forth rather than checking the speedo every 5 seconds.
[1] D'oh.
And who says there is any new traffic sign technology?
And who says it's an improvement on existing methods?
And who says it's even as good as existing methods?
Reading other comments, I conclude that it's commonsense that's in short supply, not technology.
If this is really going to happen ...
Why don't they include QR Codes (the square bar codes - look them up on Wikipedia) on each sign - encoding the signs meaning/contents in a machine readable form. Visible or possibly as an infra-red overlay. This way as our cars become cleverer, they will be able to assist us assimilating all these visual inputs so that we can focus more on not driving over the pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists...
Or even better - rather than spending any money on new signs at all - rip up the old ones. And simply spend the budget for new signs on distributing GPS based in-car sign systems to all vehicles. It might be cost effective ...? And a sign change will then be available immediately. And of course instant variable speed limits too. Hmmm though "they'd" probably also want to include a big brother aspect too... a.k.a "road pricing"
All we need is two new signs
1) Warning - multiple road signs ahead
2)Warning - the road grafitti artist has recently visited this area with his tin of white paint
"50" to become "30", "40" to become "20", and "30" to become "must have man with red flag walking in front"
Sigh.
Obviously those who complain about the UK signs have never tried driving in France or Italy. The French signage has improved a little over the last 20 years, but they refuse to have an arrow point upwards for "Straight On", instead choosing to have a sign that can't be seen until you've actually passed it! A drive in Italy requires using "The Force" to navigate and generally involves a few collisions.
I'm not too bothered, just so long as they keep the signs in the proper colours and the distance and speed limits aren't in these fiddly little "keeelommaturs" that seem so popular in Europe.
...the brown signs identifying 'places of interest' which have spread like wildfire across the country, and the bright-yellow signs pointing to new housing developments which are a new infestation in these parts.
That's a brilliant idea.
We can all buy our left-hand drive cars outside rip-off Britain, and we'll save on petrol as you get more kilometres to the litre than you do miles to the litre.
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just wanted to use the old PH icon as the new one had made baby jeebus cry.
Fantastic idea. I can just imagine what roadsigns designed under the aegis of this government might look like.
Something like this I should imagine:
http://journal.dedasys.com/articles/2008/09/05/what-if-modern-advertisers-created-the-stop-sign
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.meg/wcc/facility-of-the-month/
What about the hundreds of little signs on the M42 which appear every half mile? What is the point of that?
Some of 'em are road signs already. Stop 'cos no-one's going anywhere.
"Very simple - stop the overhead matrix signs saying 'NN minutes to Junction X'. This information is meaningless because X could be 1 or 15 miles away."
You didn’t read the sign properly, they normally tell you the distance to X as well (in Parenthesis) I always think "oh, its going to take me 15 minutes, bet I can do it in 12"
I do feel the same way about the messages these signs normally deliver "fog" or "snow". No shit Sherlock, "delays Possible" I'm on the M6 trying to get on the M62 to Manchester at 08:00, again, No shit. Unless they have something like - "To avoid the inevitable delays please follow this sign" then there really isn’t much point telling me there is a queue of traffic, I have been sat here for 20 minutes, I think I have figured out there is a queue all by myself thanks very much.
As for the M6 (and probably many other) "Sign not in use” sign why not just cover the thing up? It must be cheaper than making and erecting a new sign?
What happens when the original sign that was not in use comes into use? Do they put a sign on the "Sign not in use" sign to say that that sign is not in use or do they change the sign not in use sign to a sign in use sign?
