Motoring
The New Safety Road Signs
EVERY road-user, with the possible exception of that immortal type that refuses AO -find any good in any scheme that is not perfect, will Welcome the new regu- lations governing the design and placing of danger- signs on the road, details of which were made public at the New Year. The entire community has at last awakened to the fact that the accident-rate is out of all proportion to the miles covered by vehicles and pedestrians and we have already, it is -to be hoped, passed through the slightly ridiculous stage when the least responsible members of the public, with some assistance from the House of Lords, displayed in vociferous print and elsewhere an ignorance or, perhaps snore accurately, an ignoring of fact that was singularly unedifying and mischievous. Cold reason is returning to her place and there is now much less talk of " murder on the King's Highway " and other apocryphal conditions suggestive of the latest detective stories. The truth is bad enough, without hysterical exaggeration, and the effect of wild misquotation and misapplication of official statistics has had a sobering effect.
Practically everything and every person has been made responsible, in turn, for the terrible tale of accidents and fatalities. We have been told that all drivers of motor vehicles, without exception, are alone responsible for all sorts of mischances, the other parties being merely victims ; that the drivers of fast cars are the real culprits ; that the beginner is at-the bottom of the trouble ; that the pedestrian is either- (1) a persecuted, inarticulate, defenceless waif, or (2) a jay- walker who ought to be arrested for crossing a street ; that there are far too many ears ; that they are driven much too fast ; much too slow ; that, in the case of London, no cars that are not resident should be allowed Within the four-mile limit or whatever corresponds to it today—a soothing theory that will not bear examination —that there ought to be a speed limit of 10, 20, 30 or 40 miles an hour ; that (this from a hereditary legislator) all ears ought to be fitted with a device for automatically keeping the speed below a given figure. Most of this is best described as hot air, in that it is the expression of a momentary irritation, the fruit of anything but reflec- tion ; all of it comes under the charge of-generalization. And if there is one thing about which you rangeneralize with the least conviction it is the traffic problem. With a most refreshing originality, Authority, in the persons of the Ministry of Transport, has found a real culprit, one of several, of course, but none the less one undeniably, directly and patently responsible for a large proportion of the Weekly collisions in which people are usually injured or -killed. We who use it every day have known for many •years that the road itself is, for many hundreds of miles, quite unsuitable to modem traffic conditions. Much has been done, some of it in mistaken directions, to make the King's highway safer, but short of re-building the whole system there is no easier way of making England safe for traffic than there is of making traffic safe in England. We must do the 'best we can with what we have. Our roads are narrow, winding and, for the most Part: better suited to horse- drawn traffic with a maximum speed of 10 miles an hour, with a generally level standard of driving, than to a stream of cars, driven at any speed between 20 and 60 miles an hour, with a very uneven standard of efficiency. It is not the fast car nor the slow car that is dangerous, but the rar that is in the charge- of the fool,- the day- dreamer and the cad. A good, that is a careful and sensitive driver need make the highway no more dangerous than it was 100 years ago. Only one thing can alter the disgusting behaviour of the other three, and that is to bring it home to them, in unmistakable and memorable fashion, that the highway is itself a danger and must be treated as such.
This the Ministry of Transport are making a laudable effort to accomplish. They have, to begin with, instituted the most important danger-sign of all, the " priority." Where two roads meet, on which travellers have until now considered themselves as having each the right of way, there are to be set up on one of them the special sign called " Major Road Ahead," that will inform the driver whether he is entitled to drive on, disregarding the cross- road, or whether- he -Inuit wait- until there is a 'safe opening in the crossing traffic for him to prOceed: If he is on the " minor " road, shown by a thin line intersecting a thick one, he ism responsible for any aecident,- collision or other, that restflts from his emerging from the minor upon the major 'road: There' is no-possibility of mistake, and in more ways_ than one I. regard this as the most intelligent regulation -laid down -by- '-any- Minister of Transport since we paid the salary of the first -one.- It is obvious and simple—rare - qualities- :that., we have missed in most of our traffic-control for many -wasted years. Secondly; the Ministry - have advised .! ideal authority to cut' down the number Of signs as much as possible. They emphasize the importance, among others, of three special ones which they call approach or advance direction signs, to be used to divert traffic to a bypass or other suitable deviation, to point out the best routes through towns, and to show that a given road is a connecting link between main roads. And, most important of all, they discourage the indiscriminate erection of the type of danger-signs with which drivers have so long been familiar that they have long ceased to attach any importance to them—the kind of signal that puts a really dangerous hill in the same category as a gentle bend in a wide 'road. Familiarity with this senseless policy does not, unfortunately, even breed contempt. This- is the first time that the Ministry have displayed any knowledge of elementary psychology.
Yet they have been too timid, in my view. Other signs are approved, signs indicating no fewer than twenty " obstacles," from cross roads to the names of places. Some are necessary, such as those announcing schools or hospitals, dead-ends, crossings for pedestrians (shall we et-el.-come to the Paris scheme-of-marked lanes ?) and motor-bus stops, but most of the others could be advantageously replaced by the flashing beacons which have been such a remarkable success in the more pro- gressive towns for the last seven years or more. " Steep hills," " bridges," " traffic roundabouts," " narrowing roads " and "road junctions " are all obstacles that call for caution and cautious speed. Let the warning be the same for all, and needless complication avoided. The enthusiast in traffic reform will miss two urgently needed innovations. The first is the standardization of the height of all Signs. and signposts. Most of those in existence were designed when it was essential that they should be visible from a box-seat as much as six' or eight feet from the ground, and at as long a distance as possible. That idea is, like the French railway signal system, about ninety years old. What is wanted now is a sign that can be read at close quarters from the interior of a low-roofed saloon, placed, say, on a post not more than five feet high. The odd eight or ten feet still provided serve only to make the sign invisible, except at a distance whence it is generally 'illegible. And in this connexion I should like to see far more use made of the road-surface itself for. _directions. The words " SCHOOL" or " BUS STOP," fort example, impress themselves far better in large capitals across the, road than on any signpost or than- ny symbol. The -instant attention of the sign-sick driver roust he secured. • The second need is for all. direction-posts to have their aims so set that they do not obstruct each other, and !that they can be read withOut the necessity for turning off the road which is so lamentably common. _ - The suggestion that road numbers--:should in time be• substituted for place names on direction posts is thoroughly bad. We are a people rightly and decently distrustful of figures, official or other. We know -.the names of our towns and villages and no mathematicS of A, B, C, with 1, 2, 3, will ever be accepted in exchange for them. Very poor psychology here. _ _ _ JOHN PRIOLEAH,
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