The other day, while my wife was driving, I counted 18 different road signs between the 200 yard marker and the roundabout at the end of a local by-pass. Does anyone else feel that there is a plethora of (unnecessary?) signs these days which are both distracting and make it difficult to distinguish the important from the trivial ones?
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Does anyone else feel that there is a plethora of (unnecessary?) signs these days which are both distracting and make it difficult to distinguish the important from the trivial ones?
Yes.
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Not only too many, but badly positioned too. There is a large direction board I regularly encounter on my way home at night on an unlit road where the reflective surface is as blinding as an oncoming car on full beam. I have to dip the headlights on approach, and most cars I have followed towards it seem to do the same.
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Not only too many, but badly positioned too. There is a large direction board I regularly encounter on my way home at night on an unlit road where the reflective surface is as blinding as an oncoming car on full beam. I have to dip the headlights on approach, and most cars I have followed towards it seem to do the same.
I have this problem too. And not just with the large signs.
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L'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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Far too many and some with incorrect information. There is a sign off the A48 at Cardiff Gate which has caught me out. Slip road to roundabout. The M4 is signed as being the first exit off the roundabout and this is shown at 9 o'clock on the sign. If you take this advice you end up on a housing estate! The correct exit is actually at about 11 o'clock, but no exit ios shown at this position on the sign.
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Far too many and some with incorrect information.
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Or obsolete information.
AA signs for events that have passed. Road works that are finished. They are all a distraction.
We have lots of small yellow signs all over the area for new housing sites. Often it is for only three or four houses. Who allows that?
Our local traffic light camera has not worked for YEARS. Our local sign, with the cameraon it, was errected upside down.
A good start would be to ensure they can be read.
Motorways mega boards that are difficult to read at night.
Trees and bushes hiding signs. IIRC at one site near HJ there is a Stop sign hidden.
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I went past what may have been a school or somesuch yesterday. With all the signs, humps, platforms, bumped out pavements and the like I was so busy watching the road that it seemed to reduce my overall awareness of the surroundings, the last thing needed in this case.
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IIRC at one site near HJ there is a Stop sign hidden.
In Doncaster there is a 50mph limit sign that is mostly obscurred by the light that is intended to illumunate it!
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L'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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In yesterday's Telegraph there was a report of a coroner blaming a speed camera for driver distraction that resulted in the death of a pedestrian. "He went on to criticise the 'plethora of unnecessary road signs and markings'. . . His view was supported by the police accident investigator called to the scene . . . The Government's target for a 40 per cent cut in road casualties by 2010 is held responsible for the accelerating spread of signs giving advance warning of minor bends, 20mph zones, cycle routes, road humps, pinch-points and height or width-restricted bridges . . . if councils do not tailor their local transport plans to meet the DoT's guidelines for safety and traffic management, they are likely to lose out on funding . . . Worst roadside clutter sites include:
* The B1029 at Brightlingsea, Essex, with more than 50 signs sited along a one-mile stretch.
* The B3006, Hants, where a seven-mile stretch through a designated area of outstanding natural beauty has 207 safety signs.
* The B5284 Kendal to Bowness road, Cumbria, where the introduction of a 40mph speed limit produced a plethora of speed signs at each side of junctions and repeater signs along the whole route."
A 40% reduction in road casualties by 2010, with the inexorable increase in traffic? Get real.
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The 40% reduction figure was most likely picked out of a hat because it would reduce the deaths figure below 2,000, making a good headline.
Not a chance!
However, success will probably be announced because it will be deemed that it applied to whichever statistic meets the 40%.
This may be children, all casualties, urban casualties, cyclists, pedestrians, horse riders or bikers.
And to Blazes with the rest!
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A 40% reduction in road casualties by 2010, with the inexorable increase in traffic? Get real.
No, easy. Tax us into submission until business fail and we can't afford cars. Traffic drops, KSI figures drop, HMG has done well.
Look at the NHS. Plenty of impossible targets met there.
Be worried. Very worried.
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The council were criticised in Swindon a few years ago for erecting 13 cycletrack signs along a 1/4 mile length of road.
The same thing happened again recently (Dorcan Way, if anybody is interested) and the Council stated that they were legally obliged to put a sign wherever the cyclepath meets a footpath.
At about half of these locations there is no sign of a footpath at all!
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Yes, the info can come at a rate faster than anyone paying attention to the road can take in. It's also an eyesore.
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I read a report somewhere where Councils, Road safety organisations and the Police were starting to realise that road furniture was becoming excessive and dangerous.
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