Poor Road Signage Pictures

Busy at the mo so can’t post much.

However, I was recently driving in Donegal and witnessed some of the most thoughtless junction marking you could imagine.

A number of new yield signs were erected a few years back at junctions on minor roads near the village of Mullaghmore (most were mounted crookedly or not at the top of their posts). For some reason the council weren’t bothered in putting down any road markings - this contrasts with the approach in NI of treating road markings and signage with equal importance and not discarding one or the other.

At long last DCC have finally got round to marking these junctions but have gone and made an utter balls of it. All the yield signs have had stop lines painted next to them and two have even had STOP stencilled on the road. For the third they either ran out of paint or realised their mistake – or possibly still didn’t know any better but just weren’t arsed with any more work that day. This seems to have been borne out by the fact that a load of other junctions in the immediate vicinity were yet again left unmarked. All in all, the entire work couldn't have been more amateurish if they'd tried. And these people are actually paid!!!

Then there’s a junction near Ballyshannon that has been changed from a yield to a stop yet they’ve erected a new STOP sign without removing the old YIELD right in front of it – so you get a choice of instructions! Although I think I’ve mentioned this previously it’s worth repeating in this context.

Then there’s a junction on the N15 which has been missing advance signage in both directions for more than five years after collisions. Well, the council has finally got around to replacing the signage – but only in one direction!

Throw in a whole load of listing signs, damaged signs, road markings long worn off and you have to wonder if maintenance is a concept anyone there has actually grasped. This compares to Fermanagh where there is usually a frenzy of activity every year to repaint junction markings, straighten and replace damaged signs, etc. They were even out cleaning signs about a month back – another thing that never happens in Donegal.

What exactly is going on? The sloppiness in installing and maintaining road signs and markings in Donegal just wouldn’t be tolerated in NI. Why don’t the authorities in the Republic do something and take this issue seriously? :mad:

IIRC Donegal is one of the counties given extra money to fix their signage!

That’s right they were – I think there were five counties in total that the scheme applied to. Not sure when it will be extended to the others.

However, this only seemed to cover directional signage as there’s still so much dilapidated warning and regulatory signage. I feel it would have been much better had a comprehensive approach been taken covering all types of road signs and markings. The result is that there are lots of junctions where brand new direction signs were installed but damaged or twisted yield signs and a lack of markings weren’t rectified. I can’t see that it’s beyond the scope of the authority to realise that junctions need proper markings/yields/stops etc. as well as the directional stuff. The examples in my post above are a case in point – despite new signs, road markings were completely forgotten about for several years.

Even the directional signage project didn’t cover everything as there are still plenty of junctions with twisted or poorly placed finger posts. The type that requires you to virtually slow to a halt to read the destinations. The durability of the signage is also playing up a bit as well – the Republic seems to use a thinner/less robust aluminium sheet for the sign plates. This has resulted in the sort of dents, crumpling and ‘tears’ from collisions and flying debris that you don’t see on this side of the border where the sheeting is more durable. Indeed, one of the new signs on the N15 bypass has already been crumpled up by what can only have been a high-sided vehicle driving into it.

But what I think really needs to be addressed in Donegal and many other counties is the lack of regular maintenance. The current outlook seems to be too focused on lobbying Dublin for a big splash of cash for a major scheme every few years and then doing nothing in between. If the state of all the remaining dilapidated signage around the county is anything to go by no doubt these new directional signs will be left to disintegrate requiring another major makeover a decade from now. A good regime of checks and maintenance would go a long way towards avoiding the need for such expensive intervention in years to come.

murphaph wrote:

Fair play to you Damien but I'm not gonna go down that route personally. As you say, the root cause needs to be addressed. I see the contractors digging up the roundabout traffic islands at the Ongar end of the new distributor road. I assume they are installing the poles for directional signage-I mean, could they not anticipate the need for these poles when they intitially poured the damn concrete to form the island.

The twisted signage is only symptomatic of the real problem-a complete lack of interest by our local authorities in doing anything properly. The idiots have to start by adding a screw through the bracket and into the pole to stop wind/kids from mollesting signage. The standard bracket can be seen in the attached images. Clearly a ridiculous design for a street sign.

Brackets ? Jesus....What can I say,,,G A L !!

Thats a fake! Please...:(

Mike.

Victor wrote:

What do other countries do for finger posts to local features?

Well, your nearest neighbour – the North – doesn’t use finger posts to sign tourist attractions. All at-the-junction tourist signs are plate flags on two posts. This is the recommended practice right across the UK, although it isn’t always complied with.

Here’s an example off the web from Enniskillen in Fermanagh. If you can make it out there’s a brown tourist flag mounted on both posts beneath the white B80 flag. Unfortunately, LAs on the other side of the border can’t be relied upon to manage this simple and robust form of assembly. Strangely they seem stuck on the notion of tacking on an easily twisted finger even if two posts are available and a proper plate sign has already been used – example.

Pic: This sort of arrangement is very common down there for both tourist and route signage. Councils seem to get the idea of proper plates for the priority road but haven’t figured out how to combine this with a plate flag(s) on two posts for the minor road – so they opt for unreliable finger posts instead. By contrast an all plate assembly is used for T junctions throughout the UK and Australia. An example from New South Wales.

The Australian assembly above - with the minor road plate flags mounted on top of those for the priority road – is very common up here for both tourist and route junction signage. Interestingly, just over the border on the newly opened stretch of N15 a guesthouse managed to get this sort of T junction signage erected for it at the N15/R280 GSJ. Typically, nearby council tourist signs on the R280 are of the finger post variety. :rolleyes: There’s even one for a historic fort on another local road that has long since been twisted and fallen over – problems easily averted when using two posts and a plate flag.

Gotta love this adhoc use of a cantilevered post for a variety of fingers – including the inevitable advertising one. It looks amateurish in the extreme!

Typical NI method: typical RoI method.

The other annoying problem with finger posts down south is their often poor placement. As they need just one hole in the ground workmen can get away with plonking them in anywhere (invariably a corner close to the traffic). On the other hand, some thought has to go into siting an assembly with numerous posts.

Please dont get me started on Autobahn vs. Irish signage, I'd never stop ranting