Too many road signs

[Hornspieler]

Our highways are cluttered up with road signs which, at best, are unneccesary and at worst, distract our attention from where we should be looking - at the road ahead.

Here is my favourite Bête Noire:

You are driving along a motorway, approaching one of the many fly-over bridges and a flashing sign attracts your attention.

DANGER

Men working Overhead

What are you supposed to do?

a) Slow down in case someone or something fall down in front of you?
b) Speed up to get past the danger before someone or something does fall down?
c) Brake hard, in case the driver in front of you did slow down, while you were reading the warning sign?
d) Ignore all such signs and concentrate your attention where it should be - on the road?

There are many signs, particularly in built up areas which distract from one's ability to recognise essential signs - the signposts that give route directions**.

Here's an amusing one on the A35 in Dorset:

1 mile to Piddle

Bad news if you're bursting to go.

Since most of us have little better to do in this bleak mid winter and present musical famine, let's have a few of your favourite silly signs.

HS

** I am reminded of a viola player who came to a bad end (he finished up in the old BBC Welsh Orchestra)

We were in Southampton playing for the local choral society and there was a very attractive young maiden at the back of the sopranos (the front row is always hogged by the old battle axes - no totty there!)
He approached the young lady and said "Excuse me. I'm a complete stranger in this city. Can you tell me the way to your flat?"

[mangerton]

There's the perennial HEAVY PLANT CROSSING, but my favourite is

CATS EYES REMOVED which I saw on a visit to Norfolk a few years ago. Judging by the number of signs, it appears to be quite a large business there.

[kernelbogey]

Whenever I see 'hidden dips' (quite a few of these on the A35), I like to imagine huge vats of taramasalata, humous, etc concealed behind a hedge or trees!

[Mr Pee]

[kernelbogey]

Oh, now I see, Mr Pee - I thought it must mean you didn't like Greek food.

[johnb]

In Bristol everywhere is becoming ever more cluttered (or 'ugly-fied') with road signs, traffic lights, bollards, changes to the pavement layouts and spurious markings on the roads. I'm convinced that the city highways department has too high a budget and is constantly, desperately, looking round for anything at all that it can spend the money on.

Nationally, in recent years there have been some small groups advocating many of the abolishing traffic lights, road signs, etc, saying that traffic would flow smoother, slower and safer without them. There is a busy junction near where I live which had had a mini round-about replaced by traffic lights many years ago and suddenly the junction became a real bottle neck because of that. But .... one day the traffic lights totally failed and the result was a revelation: the bottle neck disappeared, the drivers drove much slower and negotiated each other with care - in exactly the way the advocates of reducing the number of traffic lights, etc had described.

[EdgeleyRob]

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

On the A64 near Whitwell Hill (which is in the middle of nowhere) there are multiple road signs along the road - almost too many to count. A few of them are necessary, as there's a minor road junction, but most road users will surely ignore most of them - information overload.

[JFLL]

... my favourite is CATS EYES REMOVED which I saw on a visit to Norfolk a few years ago. Judging by the number of signs, it appears to be quite a large business there.

Yes, apart from being a case for the RSPCA, I read somewhere that it was a deliberate policy in some places to remove them (the little marbles, that is), because it makes drivers slow down since they feel less confident without them. A rather rum argument, IMO.

[amateur51]

Whenever I see 'hidden dips' (quite a few of these on the A35), I like to imagine huge vats of taramasalata, humous, etc concealed behind a hedge or trees!

[Flay]

Nationally, in recent years there have been some small groups advocating many of the abolishing traffic lights, road signs, etc, saying that traffic would flow smoother, slower and safer without them. There is a busy junction near where I live which had had a mini round-about replaced by traffic lights many years ago and suddenly the junction became a real bottle neck because of that. But .... one day the traffic lights totally failed and the result was a revelation: the bottle neck disappeared, the drivers drove much slower and negotiated each other with care - in exactly the way the advocates of reducing the number of traffic lights, etc had described.

"Naked streets"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18072259

[johnb]

Yes, apart from being a case for the RSPCA, I read somewhere that it was a deliberate policy in some places to remove them (the little marbles, that is), because it makes drivers slow down since they feel less confident without them. A rather rum argument, IMO.

Cat's eyes are wonderful! The problem with white lines is that they are often totally invisible in dark, wet weather.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Yes, apart from being a case for the RSPCA, I read somewhere that it was a deliberate policy in some places to remove them (the little marbles, that is), because it makes drivers slow down since they feel less confident without them. A rather rum argument, IMO.

Very rum indeed. They are a very British thing (and brilliant) though you do see the odd road stud in France, etc. But it isn't the norm there.

[kernelbogey]

Cat's eyes are wonderful!

Betwen Stockbridge and Winchester - I've never encountered them elsewhere - there is a mile or two of road with luminous cats' eyes. If you flick your headlights off for a second or two they continue to glow into the distance. Rather beguiling.

[kernelbogey]

[....] I'm convinced that the city highways department has too high a budget and is constantly, desperately, looking round for anything at all that it can spend the money on[....]

I think it may equally be the aggressive promotion of road products by the big producers of such. For example, they must have cleaned up with the new fashion of red tarmac to warn of, for example, a change of speed limit on both sides of the road, approaches to stop signs and the like. I've given these some thought when approaching one in the car, and I don't believe it makes a scrap of difference to my driving.