In the UK, circular signs show what is prohibited (exceeding speed limits), triangular ones warn (junction coming up) and rectangular ones inform (300 miles to Whereversville).
Germans (and similarly, other countries following the Vienna Convention) do it like this:
Bike path
No bikes
How about this? Is this a bike-free road, as in Alkoholfrei? That’s why text doesn’t belong on road signs. Mostly.
(Yes, I’ve since learned that -frei in a compound word and frei as an adjective are different but you can’t tell if that’s meant to be a space because it’s a bloody pictogram and 4 letters.)
Hard agree. Where I live, occasionally stop signs have a white lettered sign underneath that says “EXCEPT FOR RIGHT TURN”. Usually it’s at intersections where you’re not really turning per se but just continuing straight on a road that happens to be curving to the right. It works fine … for people that are from here that know that those signs are there and what they mean. But people from places where they don’t have these stupid fucking signs approach on the cross street and only see the back of the stop sign and have no idea that the car coming from the right doesn’t have to stop.
Interesting, as an American our road signage is similar to the standard the other person commented. I’ve only ever seen signs that indicate what is not allowed with a very prominent slash through it though - not just a circle
No, American signs mostly use “NO” in text to indicate “not allowed”. Very inefficient. (Edit: apparently R5-6 exists for no bikes. However, almost all other bans are verbal.)
In Europe, we use multiple thin black slashes over a greyed-out sign to indicate the ban has ended.
R9-4 has an R9-4a where it’s words, and I’d bet you that’s because someone argued in court that the former bans giving thumbs up, not holding up a hitchhiking sign.
Do Not Enter has words but that’s just extra lettering overlaid on a universal pictogram sign.
there is no “most” in american signs for common/universal things like skateboarding, swimming, smoking, etc. For almost every every “No” sign that exists, there exists a counterpart “slash” sign. Add to that not every “no” sign is a roadway sign (eg no smoking)
There is a legal difference between Parking, Standing, and Idling a vehicle. Not every jusrisdiction has distinct bans for each, so there isn’t a universal way to represent each. You also need qualifiers - any time, or certain hours, or either side of the street, so you get those signs with words.
You can’t really do a picto for “No commercial vehicles”. I suppose we could do a picto for No Thru Traffic. I could also see that you can do “No Pedestrians Bicycles Motor-driven Cycles” with 3 pictograms (IMO more than like 3 words on a road sign is just a bad idea)
Some of the green tails in my city have signs saying bikes are allowed (words, not symbols). They don’t say walking is allowed, so are they bike only? I know that all the trails allow bikes, so I find these signs confusing.
All the trails have the NO signs; no motor vehicles. But people ride e-bikes and scooters on them. Don’t electric motors count as motors? Am I over thinking again?
This is how we end up with R5-10, which will soon be another sign that specifies e-bikes (and perhaps we need multiple discrete signs). We had a no phone use sign, then we needed no texting (or no mobile). The signage just hasn’t caught up.
But it gets even weirder when you’re talking about not even a roadway - so then signage changes between jurisdictions.
I tend to err on the side of caution, but dollars to donuts there’s enough ambiguity in that signage you’re thinking about where you can’t really be ticketed because you can win the argument in court. What results is lack of enforcement (which is another legal defense in and of itself).
PS IDK if it’s overthinking. This is the kind of stuff I think about lol (and apparently we’ve found our people)
By default, sidewalks and similar paths are pedestrian-only. Unlike Germany, Czech Republic is notorious for being overly explicit about what is allowed where.
Signs like End of cycleway
are super overused:
There’s also a separate sign for segregated foot/cycle paths.
This one?
yes. dutch signs use red circles to indicate what is not allowed
In the UK, circular signs show what is prohibited (exceeding speed limits), triangular ones warn (junction coming up) and rectangular ones inform (300 miles to Whereversville).
Germans (and similarly, other countries following the Vienna Convention) do it like this:
Bike path
No bikes
How about this? Is this a bike-free road, as in Alkoholfrei? That’s why text doesn’t belong on road signs. Mostly.
(Yes, I’ve since learned that -frei in a compound word and frei as an adjective are different but you can’t tell if that’s meant to be a space because it’s a bloody pictogram and 4 letters.)
Hard agree. Where I live, occasionally stop signs have a white lettered sign underneath that says “EXCEPT FOR RIGHT TURN”. Usually it’s at intersections where you’re not really turning per se but just continuing straight on a road that happens to be curving to the right. It works fine … for people that are from here that know that those signs are there and what they mean. But people from places where they don’t have these stupid fucking signs approach on the cross street and only see the back of the stop sign and have no idea that the car coming from the right doesn’t have to stop.
Interesting, as an American our road signage is similar to the standard the other person commented. I’ve only ever seen signs that indicate what is not allowed with a very prominent slash through it though - not just a circle
No, American signs mostly use “NO” in text to indicate “not allowed”. Very inefficient. (Edit: apparently R5-6 exists for no bikes. However, almost all other bans are verbal.)
In Europe, we use multiple thin black slashes over a greyed-out sign to indicate the ban has ended.
R9-3, R9-13, R9-14, R9-15, R9-16, R5-2, R8-3, R9-3, R14-5, R9-4
R9-4 has an R9-4a where it’s words, and I’d bet you that’s because someone argued in court that the former bans giving thumbs up, not holding up a hitchhiking sign.
Do Not Enter has words but that’s just extra lettering overlaid on a universal pictogram sign.
there is no “most” in american signs for common/universal things like skateboarding, swimming, smoking, etc. For almost every every “No” sign that exists, there exists a counterpart “slash” sign. Add to that not every “no” sign is a roadway sign (eg no smoking)
There is a legal difference between Parking, Standing, and Idling a vehicle. Not every jusrisdiction has distinct bans for each, so there isn’t a universal way to represent each. You also need qualifiers - any time, or certain hours, or either side of the street, so you get those signs with words.
You can’t really do a picto for “No commercial vehicles”. I suppose we could do a picto for No Thru Traffic. I could also see that you can do “No Pedestrians Bicycles Motor-driven Cycles” with 3 pictograms (IMO more than like 3 words on a road sign is just a bad idea)
Some of the green tails in my city have signs saying bikes are allowed (words, not symbols). They don’t say walking is allowed, so are they bike only? I know that all the trails allow bikes, so I find these signs confusing.
All the trails have the NO signs; no motor vehicles. But people ride e-bikes and scooters on them. Don’t electric motors count as motors? Am I over thinking again?
This is how we end up with R5-10, which will soon be another sign that specifies e-bikes (and perhaps we need multiple discrete signs). We had a no phone use sign, then we needed no texting (or no mobile). The signage just hasn’t caught up.
But it gets even weirder when you’re talking about not even a roadway - so then signage changes between jurisdictions.
I tend to err on the side of caution, but dollars to donuts there’s enough ambiguity in that signage you’re thinking about where you can’t really be ticketed because you can win the argument in court. What results is lack of enforcement (which is another legal defense in and of itself).
PS IDK if it’s overthinking. This is the kind of stuff I think about lol (and apparently we’ve found our people)
By default, sidewalks and similar paths are pedestrian-only. Unlike Germany, Czech Republic is notorious for being overly explicit about what is allowed where.
Signs like End of cycleway
are super overused:
There’s also a separate sign for segregated foot/cycle paths.
Not only Dutch signs. They are pretty much standardized across most of Europe and some other places, thanks to the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals.
That’s black
Um. Really? No crossout? Jeez.
They must arrest a ton of British tourists.
yeah I get that the standardization is great, but no cross seems like an odd choice to me
Yep!