I notice the signs beside the road seem to increase exponentially over the years. If you include all the other street furniture such as street lights - coming off the road would be probably a nasty experience. If an oncoming driver forced you off the road you would find it virtually impossible to avoid them.
I doubt if motorists even notice most of them - I don't.
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Of course; but it makes it even harder looking for the legs supporting sneaky
cameras (and thereby reduces even further the attention available for actually driving)
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The ones that annoy me are the huge brown adverts e.g. "Gullivers World". And of course the little yellow ones for new housing developments. Do they have to pay for those adverts?
But one that raises a wry smile is on the M40 - "Historic Warwick". Shouldn't it be "Historic Woric", or perhaps "Histarwick Warwick"?
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Two weeks ago, a local anti-gatso group erected a sign warning of a spped trap ahead. The police went ape in the local paper, accusing the group of 'causing danger by distracting drivers' attention'....
They really *do* think we're dim, don't they?
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The lack of what is termed "street furniture" is one of the factors that makes motorways so much safer than your local high street, despite the higher speeds.
The local authority never seems to think of using one post for two purposes.
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So we seem to be in agreement that there are too many signs on the road. An additional sin to the one Brian mentions is where a sign is modified, the new posts and sign go up, the old sign comes down but the posts stay, grrrrr!
What also hacks me off is the amount of white paint there is now, plus whatever is down there is not maintained properly.
I can think of quite a few islands where the local planners have put a spiral lane system round them, plus junctions with direction instructions incorporated in the lane markings. OK if that's what turns you on, but then they allow the paint to wear to such an extent that you can't read the markings, foreigners innocently get in the wrong lane to the intense annoyance of locals.
My point is this if it's worth doing then it's worth doing properly and keeping it maintained.
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Round our way the sign breeding season seems to be restricted to the month before end of financial year - couldn?t possibly have something to do with using up the budget they've been sitting on all year?
Shame they can't spend it on something useful like tarmac, but I suppose that's not as visible so doesn't demonstrate "effective" use of our money!
Jack
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How many people do you think die or are badly injured because the design of our 'street furniture' does not take into account collision i.e. dont you think that signs should collaspe on impact???
Being a car and bike owner I wouldn't like to think this added 'risk' of injury is due to cost implications!
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andy sampson wrote:
>
> How many people do you think die or are badly injured because
> the design of our 'street furniture' does not take into
> account collision i.e. dont you think that signs should
> collaspe on impact???
>
Would like to reference an fatac where I was consulted about a component failure quite some years ago.
HGV collided with street light on the outside of a gentle curve, driver unfortunately died. Not directly due to the impact, or due to being thrown out of the windscreen, but due to the streetlight falling on him as he lay on the pavement.
Actually the most dangerous street "furniture" to hit are trees.
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Road signs are erected to provide information to the approaching motorist. One of the primary functions is to provide safety information.It is a proven fact that the brain is only able to process a limited ammount of information over a period of time. Therefore with the proliferation of signs is it any wonder that a driver may miss something after an overload of information. eg Speed Signs.
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Wasn't it all regulated what could be erected, then the powers that be decided it would be fine for local councils or whoever to slap their own signs up - instant proliferation of brown tourist signs etc. seems the regulation had some benefit, but they dropped it. Go figure.
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The A31 Hogsback from Winchester towards London is dual carriageway. (When Mike Hawthorn was killed driving a Jag with experimental tyres it was not.) As you get to Guildford, the road splits. The right lane is for Guildford. The left is to join the main A3 towards London. The right lane has a reasonably sharp corner. the other is straight. Some few years ago there were no accidents because both the direction signs AND the arrows on the road made it clear that the A3 was straight and the Guildford rad wasa right turn. This was changed for no good reason and brand new signs were erected. These showed both ways straight ahead, including the arrows on the road. There were constant crashes. I lost count. At least one a month. People relying on the straight ahead arrows and crashing at the right turn. Eventually (dozens of crashes later) somebody noticed and the result has been a huge road widening project, with an added lane, and the imposition of a 40 MPH speed limit where it was 70 before. All this expence and silly speed limit just because some petty official decided to change a roadsign which clearly indicated a right turn into a straight ahead sign causing mayhem.
Sorry to gripe, but I've watched it happen.
Has anyone else seen this particular one? and what can an ordinary person do about these bureocratic cock ups. Nothing???
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