Road signage.

An Coilean

Quick question, is it the county council or some other organisation that is responcible for the erection and maintenance of signage on the side of the road.

Specifically of the type shown in the link.

http://s0.thejournal.ie/media/2012/06/113-BEAL-NA-BLATH-296x197.jpg


Thanks.

Kevwoody

An Coilean wrote: »

Quick question, is it the county council or some other organisation that is responcible for the erection and maintenance of signage on the side of the road.

Specifically of the type shown in the link.

http://s0.thejournal.ie/media/2012/06/113-BEAL-NA-BLATH-296x197.jpg


Thanks.

That sign looks like it would be the county councils responsibility.

All roads starting with either N or M, are the responsibility of the National Roads Authority and they hire sign companies to carry out maintenance and installation.

All other roads, local and regional, are maintained by the local council, and not very well at that.
They will sometimes install the signs themselves, or tender it out to contractors

Chris_5339762

Does that sign say "CastletowMbere"???

Colm R

I see they've started using 'Ambush Site' now. Every signpost for 'Beal na mBlath' ends up in some Irish pub in the US.

Hibbeler

Kevwoody wrote: »

That sign looks like it would be the county councils responsibility.

All roads starting with either N or M, are the responsibility of the National Roads Authority and they hire sign companies to carry out maintenance and installation.

All other roads, local and regional, are maintained by the local council, and not very well at that.
They will sometimes install the signs themselves, or tender it out to contractors

Question: Why does there seem to be from what I've seen in signposting off N routes in different counties?

For example driving along N routes in some counties they seem to have nice big two-pole signposts for areas that only really townlands and thus only really concern locals. Whereas the village I live near in county Meath is only signposted off the N52 in one out of at least 3 possible routes (2 of which actually go into the village).

Does this mean that the different county councils have say in what signs get put up on N roads (assuming it is the NRA's responsibility)?

I know Meath CC have set the speed limit on the N52 to 80km/h and when you cross the border into Louth it's back to 100km/h so county councils must have some input?

Decoda

Hibbeler wrote: »

Question: Why does there seem to be from what I've seen in signposting off N routes in different counties?

For example driving along N routes in some counties they seem to have nice big two-pole signposts for areas that only really townlands and thus only really concern locals. Whereas the village I live near in county Meath is only signposted off the N52 in one out of at least 3 possible routes (2 of which actually go into the village).

Does this mean that the different county councils have say in what signs get put up on N roads (assuming it is the NRA's responsibility)?

I know Meath CC have set the speed limit on the N52 to 80km/h and when you cross the border into Louth it's back to 100km/h so county councils must have some input?

Speed limits are a function of the County Councils, however they must notify the Garda Siochana and also seek the permission of the NRA for alterations to speed limits on N National roads.

While the County Councils are the roads authority, signage and road markings on N National roads is the responsibility of the NRA, so all signage should be standardised across the country (but we all know thats its not, hence your observation). The NRA recently undertook a resigning project on the N25 in Wexford and while erecting new directional signage removed all other signs, even those licensed by the County Councils. These signs included County Council tourism signs, finger post signs for B & B's etc.

DC

Victor

The NRA is primarily a standards and funding agency. Invariably, it si the councils that do the actual work. This has changed only slightly over the years, with toll operators responsible for their sections of road, while some management contracts have been assigned recently for longish sections of motorway.

chewed

Quick question on signage....

Why is the R147 (Old N3) marked in as yellow on directional sign posts?

Smonocco

chewed wrote: »

Quick question on signage....

Why is the R147 (Old N3) marked in as yellow on directional sign posts?

I've seen the same for the R448 (old N9).

Victor

chewed wrote: »

Quick question on signage....

Why is the R147 (Old N3) marked in as yellow on directional sign posts?

Possibly to mark an alternative route for detours.

icdg

That's new in the Traffic Signs Manual (TSM to its friends) 2010. Alternative routes for motorways are now signed with a yellow background. Not much signage yet on the ground with this change though.

The Traffic Signs Manual 2010 is the "bible" for signposting in Ireland and what road authorities (NRA and councils) are meant to follow when signing roads. Although its quite explicit councils in particular are known not to follow it 100% or to make up their own variations as they go along.

http://www.transport.ie/viewitem.asp?id=12971&lang=ENG&loc=2635

Since TSM 2010, there's been another change, with the the introduction of driver location signs which have made an appearance on the M4 and M7 quite recently - these are signs every 500m which tell you what road, carriageway, and distance from the M50 you are at, so you can identify this to the emergency services. They've been on the M7 for a while but have only cropped up on the M4 in the last fortnight.

Decoda

Victor wrote: »

The NRA is primarily a standards and funding agency. Invariably, it si the councils that do the actual work. This has changed only slightly over the years, with toll operators responsible for their sections of road, while some management contracts have been assigned recently for longish sections of motorway.

Hi Vic,

While the NRA are the standards and funding agency for National roads, all signing and lining on the National road network, both maintenance and new is the responsibility of the NRA, managed through their regional design offices, contracted to the large sign manufactures and that the local authority now have no input into it.

DC

JupiterKid

I've also seen some of these yellow background signs on the R445 (old N7) between Nenagh and Birdhill.

niloc1951

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

Does that sign say "CastletowMbere"???

Well spotted;)

There are a few beauts on the N25, right handed bend showing as left handed on three advance warning signs.

What really fascinates me however is the gobs#1t€s who put them on the poles, not to mind the dopes who ordered and accepted them from the suppliers, and lackadaisical 'overseers' responsible for the quality of the end result :mad:

Victor

niloc1951 wrote: »

There are a few beauts on the N25, right handed bend showing as left handed on three advance warning signs.

What really fascinates me however is the gobs#1t€s who put them on the poles, not to mind the dopes who ordered and accepted them from the suppliers, and lackadaisical 'overseers' responsible for the quality of the end result :mad:

You might report the problem.

RobertFoster

icdg wrote: »

That's new in the Traffic Signs Manual (TSM to its friends) 2010. Alternative routes for motorways are now signed with a yellow background. Not much signage yet on the ground with this change though.

The Traffic Signs Manual 2010 is the "bible" for signposting in Ireland and what road authorities (NRA and councils) are meant to follow when signing roads. Although its quite explicit councils in particular are known not to follow it 100% or to make up their own variations as they go along.

http://www.transport.ie/viewitem.asp?id=12971&lang=ENG&loc=2635

Since TSM 2010, there's been another change, with the the introduction of driver location signs which have made an appearance on the M4 and M7 quite recently - these are signs every 500m which tell you what road, carriageway, and distance from the M50 you are at, so you can identify this to the emergency services. They've been on the M7 for a while but have only cropped up on the M4 in the last fortnight.

I'd noticed the yellow signs on the R147, but only guessed their meaning when they started appearing on the R135 too. I wonder if learners are told their meaning, I doubt many have heard of the TSM

The driver location signs are interesting too, I noticed some along the M2 the other day.

niloc1951

Victor wrote: »

You might report the problem.

Did, many years ago, wasted time :rolleyes:

DeiseforLiam

Decoda wrote: »

Hi Vic,

While the NRA are the standards and funding agency for National roads, all signing and lining on the National road network, both maintenance and new is the responsibility of the NRA, managed through their regional design offices, contracted to the large sign manufactures and that the local authority now have no input into it.

DC

Almost right, except that the RDOs are not NRA offices. They are staffed by local authorities.

Decoda

MetalMan9 wrote: »

Almost right, except that the RDOs are not NRA offices. They are staffed by local authorities.

The staff of the RDO's, while LA employees, are seconded from their respective LA to the NRA. Also the RDO's are NRA offices.


http://www.corkrdo.ie/about-the-office/

From the above link

"The Cork County Council National Roads Office was established by the NRA in the late 1990s as part of a network of regional offices. Initially it was focused on the design of national roads in County Cork but has since evolved to encompass the design and management of national road schemes, in Cork City and County"

DC

DeiseforLiam

Sorry, but they are not seconded to the NRA. They are seconded to the local authority in which the RDO is based (if it is a regional office working for a number of LAs). Yes the NRA was instrumental in setting them up but it was in partnership with the LAs involved. You will come across several references to them being called NRA and indeed many junior staff and people in local authorities think they are NRA but trust me on this.

SpaceTime

Colm R wrote: »

I see they've started using 'Ambush Site' now. Every signpost for 'Beal na mBlath' ends up in some Irish pub in the US.

How exactly do people manage to get past airport security with roadsigns ?!

They should be charged with theft and criminal damage at the airport if they've one in possession and cannot explain why.

We also need to come up with a better way of securing them to poles so they cannot be removed or twisted so easily.

Hexagonal / slotted posts and some kind of keyed screws would seem like a simple approach to avoid a lot of problems with R-road signage.

ardmacha

How exactly do people manage to get past airport security with roadsigns ?

They check them in.

JohnC.

Or post/courier them over.

SpaceTime

When it comes to signage in Ireland there are two things that annoy me a lot.

1) Why do we still have red circle signs being used to indicate something's permitted when they mean forbidden in all other EU countries. It's just dangerous and pointless.
E.g. P in a red circle for parking permitted!?
It's worse when there's use of old style keep left (which is a black arrow in a red circle) and could actually result in a continental driver deciding it means no left turn and swinging right.

They should be all replaced by blue signs with white symbols.

The negative version is not a problem i.e. red circle with line through it. But the positive version is in direct conflict with the Vienna Convention signage used elsewhere in Europe.

2) We need to move towards positive signage. It's more psychologically likely to work as people don't necessarily interpret "do not" when they're reading something quickly.

A white arrow on a blue background indicating that you must go left or straight ahead only is better than say no right turn.
We seem to have endless no right / no left turns all over the place rather than just saying "straight ahead only!"

The general continental practice is using blue arrows mostly and only the odd crossed out arrow in a red circle here and there where double-clarity is needed.

3) Posting ridiculous looking speed limits on roads that clearly can't handle anything like the limit printed up. Like 80km/h on some borreen with grass up the middle.

marmurr1916

SpaceTime wrote: »

Posting ridiculous looking speed limits on roads that clearly can't handle anything like the limit printed up. Like 80km/h on some borreen with grass up the middle.

The old system used this symbol to show that the general speed limit applied:



The general speed limit, prior to the introduction of metric speed limits, was 60 mph.

In other words, the old speed limit on these boreens was 60 mph.

The only reason people didn't complain that this limit was 'ridiculous' was because the symbol didn't specify the limit in numbers.

Speed limits, as has been repeatedly pointed out, are not targets. They are maximums which should only be used if road and driving conditions permit.

BTW, I've driven on boreens like this at 80 km/h when driving conditions have permitted.

80 km/h is not unobtainable if you know what you're doing...

Alun

Personally I'd rather they just put a blanket limit on all these back roads than waste vast amounts of time and money combing every last km of every last boreen calculating a safe speed for every bend and kink in the road. Not to mention the visual clutter this would result in.

murphaph

SpaceTime wrote: »

2) We need to move towards positive signage. It's more psychologically likely to work as people don't necessarily interpret "do not" when they're reading something quickly.

A white arrow on a blue background indicating that you must go left or straight ahead only is better than say no right turn.
We seem to have endless no right / no left turns all over the place rather than just saying "straight ahead only!"

The general continental practice is using blue arrows mostly and only the odd crossed out arrow in a red circle here and there where double-clarity is needed.

Agree strongly with this. However I wouldn't say the general continental practice is "positive" over "negative" signage. In France at least you see "no x turn" signs all over the place as well. In Germany there are no such signs. The only "negative" sign in Germany is "no u-turn" and "no entry", otherwise everything is "positive".

We just copy the UK (sort of) and hope for the best, rather than looking for bertter alternatives that are already giving good service elsewhere.

tonc76

Alun wrote: »

Personally I'd rather they just put a blanket limit on all these back roads than waste vast amounts of time and money combing every last km of every last boreen calculating a safe speed for every bend and kink in the road. Not to mention the visual clutter this would result in.

That's exactly what was done for the metric signs changeover which is why everything from Regional roads down to local tertiary roads in rural areas now has an 80 km/h speed limit

ardmacha

Why do we still have red circle signs being used to indicate something's permitted when they mean forbidden in all other EU countries. It's just dangerous and pointless.
E.g. P in a red circle for parking permitted!?

A red circle in Ireland is not a sign of persmission so much as the exisitence of a restriction. A permissive sign with a restriction is also a bit odd.

Alun wrote: »

Personally I'd rather they just put a blanket limit on all these back roads than waste vast amounts of time and money combing every last km of every last boreen calculating a safe speed for every bend and kink in the road. Not to mention the visual clutter this would result in.

Absolutely. Those who speed would ignore such signs and those who need them as a guide to their speed wouldn't see them So putting a load of them all over the place would be a complete waste of time.

This continual complaining about 80Kph signs is immature, the same roads in the North have a 60mph limit and nobody seems to find that odd.

ardmacha

ardmacha wrote: »

Why do we still have red circle signs being used to indicate something's permitted when they mean forbidden in all other EU countries. It's just dangerous and pointless.
E.g. P in a red circle for parking permitted!?

Absolutely. Those who speed would ignore such signs and those who need them as a guide to their speed wouldn't see them So putting a load of them all over the place would be a complete waste of time.

This continual complaining about 80Kph signs is immature, the same roads in the North have a 60mph limit and nobody seems to find that odd.

80kmh is not the same as 60mph, it's the dropping of a speed limit due to the road having an "R" that's the problem.

murphaph

murphaph wrote: »

Agree strongly with this. However I wouldn't say the general continental practice is "positive" over "negative" signage. In France at least you see "no x turn" signs all over the place as well. In Germany there are no such signs. The only "negative" sign in Germany is "no u-turn" and "no entry", otherwise everything is "positive".

We just copy the UK (sort of) and hope for the best, rather than looking for bertter alternatives that are already giving good service elsewhere.

In Spain at a motorway merge, they have a single "Ahead only" white arrow in a blue circle rather than both no left & no right turn signs( or the more silly "no U turn".

ardmacha

80kmh is not the same as 60mph, it's the dropping of a speed limit due to the road having an "R" that's the problem.

There aren't 3% of roads with 80kmh where a higher speed limit is needed. Only modernised R roads, certainly very few L roads.

Carawaystick

SpaceTime wrote: »

When it comes to signage in Ireland there are two things that annoy me a lot.

1) Why do we still have red circle signs being used to indicate something's permitted when they mean forbidden in all other EU countries. It's just dangerous and pointless.
E.g. P in a red circle for parking permitted!?
It's worse when there's use of old style keep left (which is a black arrow in a red circle) and could actually result in a continental driver deciding it means no left turn and swinging right.

They should be all replaced by blue signs with white symbols.

The negative version is not a problem i.e. red circle with line through it. But the positive version is in direct conflict with the Vienna Convention signage used elsewhere in Europe.

Why should we change our signs?
Visitors should learn our rules of the road before driving.

SpaceTime wrote: »

2) We need to move towards positive signage. It's more psychologically likely to work as people don't necessarily interpret "do not" when they're reading something quickly.

A white arrow on a blue background indicating that you must go left or straight ahead only is better

The use of the word likely suggests you have no evidence it would be better. Evidence free thinking is not the way forward

SpaceTime wrote: »

3) Posting ridiculous looking speed limits on roads that clearly can't handle anything like the limit printed up. Like 80km/h on some borreen with grass up the middle.

The third of your couple of points... The limit was 60 mph, there's no need to travel at the limit, the road might improve to be capable of driving safely at 61kmh so a higher limit should apply,
In Germany the limit would be 100, in France 90, south Armagh a dual carriageway exit slip increases from 80 kmh to 60 mph as you approach the junction at the end

Carawaystick

Carawaystick wrote: »

Why should we change our signs?
Visitors should learn our rules of the road before driving.

I wonder how many unnecessary deaths and injuries were caused by those contradictory signs causing confusion, I'm glad to see that most have now been removed.

SpaceTime

Well, let me start by addressing your first point

Carawaystick wrote: »

Why should we change our signs?
Visitors should learn our rules of the road before driving.

The whole idea of the EU is that people can move around it freely.
Ireland's signage clashes are just dangerous and completely unnecessary.

Having different rules of the road or radically different signage (especially where it has the completely opposite meaning to all other EU countries) is just adding unnecessary dangers for both visiting and Irish drivers.

It also means that Irish drivers are blissfully unaware of the meaning of signage on the continent and in Northern Ireland and Britain which can result in accidents. Bear in mind that the UK basically complies with the Vienna Convention on most of its signage even if it hasn't fully ratified it.

There are other quirks of rules in other EU countries too and I think they should be abolished too. E.g. Spain's rather ridiculous roundabout rules where the outer lane always has priority on multi-lane roundabouts and drivers regularly use it to go the full way around.

France and Belgium's priority to the right rules which can result in side-on collisions when someone who doesn't understand the signage encounters someone driving straight across them in an urban area.

In general, confusing and counter-intuitive rules shouldn't be there.

....

Traffic rules within the EU should be about safety and avoiding people getting killed/injured, not some kind of bizarre symbols of national identity!

Carawaystick wrote: »

The use of the word likely suggests you have no evidence it would be better. Evidence free thinking is not the way forward

There are literally heaps of research in communications, psychology and marketing that show that a simple, positive, imperative message is likely to register and be understood much more so than a positive statement that is then negated by "Don't" or visually with a line through it.

Your brain has to firstly register the positive symbol and then register the negation and add the two together. If you are reading signage, at speed, then that requires more processing time than reading a simple imperative sign like a straight ahead arrow.

For example, the no entry signage we use is a classic example of this.
The red circle with the white line is a clear, simple sign that requires no processing time to interpret. When you see a crossed out arrow, it can take a second or two to click that it's "ah don't go straight ahead = don't enter" and that 1 second or 2 seconds can be enough to result in someone driving past the sign and down the wrong side of a motorway.

I really don't have time to go looking for citations right now, but I would suggest you read some communication psychology texts on the subject. There is literally decades of research on this kind of stuff and it's something that advertisers in particular are acutely aware of.

The key objective of road signage should be that it can be read and understood in a fraction of a second and that means you need to limit the amount of cognitive processes required to read the sign. So it should be a simple, easily interpreted imperative, not a whole series of negatives as is often the case on Irish junctions with no left turn, no right turn and then no signage for straight ahead only.

Carawaystick wrote: »

The third of your couple of points... The limit was 60 mph, there's no need to travel at the limit, the road might improve to be capable of driving safely at 61kmh so a higher limit should apply,
In Germany the limit would be 100, in France 90, south Armagh a dual carriageway exit slip increases from 80 kmh to 60 mph as you approach the junction at the end

To me, it just adds confusion and clutter.

Technically, you are correct, but the problem is that a very large % of drivers interpret the speed limit as a safe limit to drive at on this piece of road and will target driving at the speed limit or maybe 10km/h below it.

From a psychological point of view, it seems a bit pointless when you could just apply a general speed limit of 80 on all non-N roads and then just use speed limiting signage in between.

Again, tourists are the ones who will often misinterpret this as that system of signage isn't the norm anywhere I've driven other than Ireland.

Usually on rural roads, you get a general speed limit and then specific restrictions in dangerous areas / bends etc.

...

If you read any travel forums you'll see lots of tourists from the UK, US and elsewhere completely baffled as to why a winding, narrow, rural road has a 80km/h sign on it.

Again, the purpose of signage on roads should be to minimize and eliminate dangers and risks to motorists not to get tied up in pedantic nonsense or national pride.

It's about clear, unambiguous, easily interpreted messages to motorists to prevent death and injury!

ardmacha

If you read any travel forums you'll see lots of tourists from the UK, US and elsewhere completely baffled as to why a winding, narrow, rural road has a 80km/h sign on it.

You may see such comments from the US, who drivers are rather inedequate in general. Those from the UK are generally of Paddywhackery variety, since they too do not have appropriate limits on rural roads. In the US, or Australia the situation is quite different, the vast majority of roads are engineered rather than organic. In Ireland, engineered roads work much like those in the US. But every European country has organic roads, where the appropriate speed varies, and that do not specify in detail the speed you should drive at.

However, a 100 and end of 100 might well have been better, but when the Km limits were introduced the 80 was an attempt to clearly signal that the road should have lower limit, as distinct from the previous situation.

Alun

From my experience of driving on relatively windy US roads (in Oregon and Washington state), they go completely overboard with frequent speed limit changes at even the slightest bend in the road, sometimes only changing in increments of 5mph. Way over the top.

ardmacha

From my experience of driving on relatively windy US roads (in Oregon and Washington state), they go completely overboard with frequent speed limit changes at even the slightest bend in the road, sometimes only changing in increments of 5mph. Way over the top.

They do this because such roads are relatively uncommon.
Very few accidents in Ireland are caused by people driving too fast around bends etc, other than people who were intentionally driving fast.

moyners

When I lived in New Zealand for a few years I was very impressed with the way they put an advisory speed on the severe bend signs. You can tell how bad the bend is going to be by whether it says 70 or 50 or 35 on it. Better than in Ireland where the severe bend sign in my experience can either turn out to be a slight curve or a nightmare hairpin. It would be quite easy to do. Just pick a suitable advisory speed whenever the old sign needs replacing.

Geogregor

moyners wrote: »

When I lived in New Zealand for a few years I was very impressed with the way they put an advisory speed on the severe bend signs. You can tell how bad the bend is going to be by whether it says 70 or 50 or 35 on it. Better than in Ireland where the severe bend sign in my experience can either turn out to be a slight curve or a nightmare hairpin. It would be quite easy to do. Just pick a suitable advisory speed whenever the old sign needs replacing.

Well, if you tried to do something similar on twisted Irish roads you would end up with forests of road signs on any local roads. You would have to put millions of them.

Besides, such advisory speeds are totally pointless. Safe speed depends from vehicle you drive (Porsche or a bus) as well as from the weather (beautiful sunny day or blizzard). So what is the point of those sings?

I'm all for marking some absolute speed limit for particular road (I think 80 kph is reasonable for most local Irish roads) but we should let drivers adjust speed according to what they drive and to road condition.
Otherwise we'll be spending millions on signs with little benefit for safety.

The advisory speed limit sign would give an indication of what is considered a safe speed to take the corner for an average vehicle, it's up to the driver to determine what +/- he needs to put on that advice to get his particular vehicle safely around the bend.

So the Porsche driver may add 30% whereas the bus driver may deduct 20% for the same bend.

If you don't like the advisory speed limit, perhaps you could come up with a "sharpness" scale,

e.g 0 being a straight line 90 being a right angle divided by the length of road in the bend.

So a 45 Deg bend with the bend taking 10 metres to turn would score 4.5 and a 45 deg bent over 2 metres (sharp!) would score 22.5.

The higher the number the sharper the bend!

Victor

Deleted User wrote: »

If you don't like the advisory speed limit, perhaps you could come up with a "sharpness" scale,

e.g 0 being a straight line 90 being a right angle divided by the length of road in the bend.

Minimum radius would be a better measure.

moyners

Geogregor wrote: »

Well, if you tried to do something similar on twisted Irish roads you would end up with forests of road signs on any local roads. You would have to put millions of them.

Besides, such advisory speeds are totally pointless. Safe speed depends from vehicle you drive (Porsche or a bus) as well as from the weather (beautiful sunny day or blizzard). So what is the point of those sings?

I'm all for marking some absolute speed limit for particular road (I think 80 kph is reasonable for most local Irish roads) but we should let drivers adjust speed according to what they drive and to road condition.
Otherwise we'll be spending millions on signs with little benefit for safety.

Look at the picture again - it's a small number underneath the existing severe bend sign. I don't see how you would end up with forests of road signs? The severe bend signs are already in place in most cases. What I'm saying is it wouldn't take much to attach an advisory number underneath whenever you're replacing the signs as part of routine maintenance.

Laugh all you want about porsches and tractors but having experienced them they are a great aid when driving in an average car. It doesn't mean you have to give up any bit of common sense you have and not adjust your driving style to the car or weather conditions. I have actually driven those roads in a blizzard. Of course I didn't try and match the 70kph on the sign.

Geogregor

moyners wrote: »

Look at the picture again - it's a small number underneath the existing severe bend sign. I don't see how you would end up with forests of road signs? The severe bend signs are already in place in most cases. What I'm saying is it wouldn't take much to attach an advisory number underneath whenever you're replacing the signs as part of routine maintenance.

Laugh all you want about porsches and tractors but having experienced them they are a great aid when driving in an average car. It doesn't mean you have to give up any bit of common sense you have and not adjust your driving style to the car or weather conditions. I have actually driven those roads in a blizzard. Of course I didn't try and match the 70kph on the sign.

I still think it is unnecessary expense. Someone has to check and maintain all those signs and plates however small they are.
Also, there might be a case that people will try to "match" the speed on sign regardless of the conditions on road or the type of vehicle they drive.
Don't underestimate such desire.

There was research done somewhere (sorry can't remember the details) indicating that less road signs force driver to think more about their driving rather than blindly following the signs.

Geogregor

Geogregor wrote: »

I still think it is unnecessary expense. Someone has to check and maintain all those signs and plates however small they are.
Also, there might be a case that people will try to "match" the speed on sign regardless of the conditions on road or the type of vehicle they drive.
Don't underestimate such desire.

There was research done somewhere (sorry can't remember the details) indicating that less road signs force driver to think more about their driving rather than blindly following the signs.

There have been examples in the Nederlands where they removed all the signs & lines from the streets in some of the smaller villages, this had the effect of reducing the speeds that drivers went through the village as they used to use the lines as a guide.

Without the guides, motorists felt less safe and therefore slowed down.

In the UK they had the opposite happen when they put speed limit signs on a road that was previously unsigned and the accident rate increased.

The road was an A road with an automatic limit of 60mph, but motorists usually went on average 35mph as it was quite a bad section of road, they put a limit of 40mph so drivers speeded up and crashed!

mel.b

icdg wrote: »

Since TSM 2010, there's been another change, with the the introduction of driver location signs which have made an appearance on the M4 and M7 quite recently - these are signs every 500m which tell you what road, carriageway, and distance from the M50 you are at, so you can identify this to the emergency services. They've been on the M7 for a while but have only cropped up on the M4 in the last fortnight.

These have appeared on the M18 as well. Is there really any need to have them every 500m though They are an eye sore and surely there are better things that the governments money could be spent on.

mel.b

mel.b wrote: »

These have appeared on the M18 as well. Is there really any need to have them every 500m though They are an eye sore and surely there are better things that the governments money could be spent on.

Probably no worse than telegraph poles, I suppose.
As for eyesores, motorways aren't exactly easy on the eye at the best of times.