Are there too many road signs?

[another_dave_b]

An article in today's Telegraph says:

Complaints about the 71 road signs bristling along a half a mile stretch on the A419 have highlighted one of the more interesting debates in road safety.

A number of experts believe that drivers are being hit with information overload and that our roads would be safer – as well as more attractive – with less clutter.

I happen to agree with them. A couple of years ago I went to Drachten, a small town in northern Holland where the majority of street signs have been stripped out. The theory behind this is that if roads are slightly more risky, motorists will drive more carefully.

It sounds counter-intuitive, but in fact it has worked. The number of serious accidents has dropped since the signs – and even some of the traffic lights – were removed.

 

[Night Train]

I would tend to agree but it only works if we have a breed of driver that has common sense and drives carefully when there is a potential hazard as taught in the driving lessons. Unfortunately I find many drivers work on the principle of 'Can't see anything ahead so it must be clear.'.

 

[tyred]

I definitely think there are too many.

 

[Hover Fly]

Definitely too many of the "slight kink in road ahead" and similar types. Why is it you can be going along a twisty Cumbrian road and one particular bend needs a sign?

 

[Kirstie]

Local councils are too paranoid about being sued by people who have road accidents if they can prove that there should have been a sign to highlight a hazard, which could have prevented the accident.

Everyone just watching their backs, I reckon.

Got no idea about the cumbrian bend - maybe it was a decreaing radius bend and hence more hazardous than the rest? Or there had been accidents there previously.

 

[marinyork]

What I thought was ridiculous about the no u turn road signs on that road on the news yesterday was not the number of signs but the number of lit signs. Getting people not to do insanely dangerous U turns is an uphill struggle, I don't especially have a problem with too many of those signs. Lighting them seems absurd though. It's like the other day I noticed a lit cycle sign in Sheffield. What's the point?

 

[Hover Fly]

There are several roads like that. I know that chevrons were at one time nicknamed "Idiot Boards" because they were only put up on corners where someone had gone straight on.

 

[Globalti]

Compulsory signs are needed or more idiots than usual would cause crashes.

Advisory signs are only there to protect councils' backsides.

Most idiots, chavs and BMW drivers ignore signs anway because they don't apply to them. So removing advisory signs wouldn't make any difference to their driving, in fact there's a good genetic argument in favour of allowing them to kill themselves.

The only people who really benefit from advisory signs are lorry drivers who need to read the road three times further ahead than car drivers and need al the help they can get.

 

[Eat MY Dust]

I find sometimes there aren't enough. There's couple of stretches on the North Circular in London where if it your first time on the road it could be very easy to miss junctions etc. obviously once you're familiar with the road then no problems. I also find when approaching RABs coming off a 70 mph road you sometimes don't get any directions until you're nearly on the RAB, again not handy if you're new to the road!

 

[bonj2]

if you're going north on the A6 through stockport there aren't ANY signs for the M56 and you end up having gone past it on the way to the middle of manchester. don't know whether any have recently been built.

 

[Over The Hill]

Not sure on the author of the article but this sort of thing often springs up from the likes of Safespeed and other idiots who think they have a right to drive around like Jezzer Clarkson and should not be told or informed of anything. They usually claim to have not seen a 30 sign and claim in court that it was unreasonalble to have been expected to see it because there were other signs around. These are the ones that get sent off for driver awareness training- which they seem to need. Although putting them on a bike or even a motorbike for a month would be far better.

Yes some are a bit pointless and there seems to be no uniform way to set them out nicely they just litter the roadside.

It is a bit odd that you cycle along a road for miles and then just because the road becomes part of a cycle route there is a bike warning sign. I guess there is a slightly higher chance of encountering a bike on that bit of road but it is worrying that there is seen to be a need to alert drivers to the possibility of encountering a bike. What happens on all the other roads?

 

[Over The Hill]

I find sometimes there aren't enough. There's couple of stretches on the North Circular in London where if it your first time on the road it could be very easy to miss junctions etc. obviously once you're familiar with the road then no problems. I also find when approaching RABs coming off a 70 mph road you sometimes don't get any directions until you're nearly on the RAB, again not handy if you're new to the road!

70 is the maximum allowed speed. You are able to drive slower if you want to.

 

[Mr Pig]

What about advertising? My brother has run into the back of another car on two separate occasions because he was reading a billboard.

Ok, my brother is an idiot but until they ban idiots from driving...

 

[tyred]

If they banned idiots from driving, roads would be practically empty and congestion in towns and cities would disappear overnight.

 

[Eat MY Dust]

70 is the maximum allowed speed. You are able to drive slower if you want to.

Let's be grown up about this. I can name 2 RABs that I use that you'd need to approach at below 30mph to easily read the directions being shown. Try doing that coming off the M1 and you're probably going to cause a pile up as everyone plows into the back of you.