Radio 4 next Tuesday (11th May) at 9.30am :
Routemasters:
"A celebration of some of our most familiar, yet unrecognised, design classics: the road sign, the white line, the roundabout, the green man, and the traffic calmer.
Joe Kerr meets the woman who was one half of the team that in the 1960s came up with the distinctive look of British road signs.
It is hard to imagine now, but the nation was outraged when lower-case letters were introduced on our road signs."
Might be worth a listen.
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I don't think the traffic calmers can go down as a design classic, more an expensive mistake. The trend now seems to be moving toward digging them up again, no doubt at twice what it cost to put them down in the first place.
And the white line has been around for a lot longer than the people who design roads :-)
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They deserve some recognition. Anyone who has traveled around Europe will realise that British road signs and directions are a model of clarity. Along with cats eyes and reflective white paint.
Well they used to be when they were maintained. Now they are covered in moss and hidden by trees and bushes. The white lines are now covered in poor patched tarmac, and not maintained.
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And the white line has been around for a lot longer than the people who design roads :-)
I think the clever design part of the humble white line is that it can mean so many different things in its various forms: centre line, hazard line, give way, stop line, lane line,etc.
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"Anyone who has traveled around Europe will realise that British road signs and directions are a model of clarity."
I think I need to take a trip to Europe so I can fully appreciate British road signs. To date, road signage (or the lack thereof) has been one of the things I find most difficult to deal with since moving here.
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Hell, a lot of our road signing is a disgrace! OK, signposting is generally pretty good (though their reflective surface means that a big one an be almost dazzling at night).
But the placing of signs giving other info - especially instructions and warnings - is awful. Signs for everything - so many you can't take it all in. And haphazardly placed, usually on a post that's already there for some other purpose, and quite possibly on the right-hand side of the road away from the driver's natural line of vision.
Then there are all the fabulously complicated junction layouts, with multiple filter lanes, traffic signals, road markings and illuminated bollards. And which tend to hold up the traffic flow. The designers clearly aren't road users and/or never see their masterpieces in action (or inaction).
Country's going/gone to the dogs. Where should I emigrate to?
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It's a classic UK problem.
The basic design of our road furniture is superb - a model of clarity. Then we leave the specific implementation to local councils.
Mind you, try the alternative...
www.manaszk.it.pl/zarty/sign10.jpg
www.manaszk.it.pl/zarty/sign12.jpg
www.manaszk.it.pl/zarty/one_way.jpg
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You don't live in Kent by any chance?
I think they took out the signposts at the beginning of the 1939-45 war and never put them back.
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Can be heard again at: (Routemasters)
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/progs/listenagain.shtml#r
Next week is all about roundabouts....
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