Monday 15 September 2008

UK Road Sign Revision

On Saturday, the Department of Transport announced a revision of UK road signs.

Some goals of the review will be
  • To consider new powers to reduce street clutter - and ensure out of date signs are removed;
  •  Look at using new traffic sign technologies that can provide new ways of managing traffic flow;
  • Provide better road information - such as up-to-date travel news - to give motorists informed choices about their journeys;
  • Demonstrate how effective signing can provide safer roads and reduce accidents;
  • Improve road users' understanding of traffic signs and signals.
This organisation looks forward to this, and will make some proposals. A key one is that street clutter can be reduced by removing out of date signs indicating that parking is illegal, as in Bristol it is clear that bus lanes, bike lanes, double yellow lined streets and school areas are common parking areas. Removing the signage will make the streets much less cluttered. Furthermore, the meaning of those few signs that are retained can be communicated to road users by imposing some form of penalty for lack of adherence to the rules. For example, ignoring speed limit signs could be penalised with something we have given a working title of "speeding ticket"; ignoring what few no-parking signs left after a rationalisation could be punished with a "parking ticket". Apparently such tickets have been experimented with in different countries, and been shown to change behaviour.

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