Unnecessary road signs; what a waste of our money!

Yes, of course, those “shops X km” signs are only there so those absolute bastard cyclists can find places. Not one other person on the face of the planet would ever need to read such an atrocious sign! Because EVERYONE else knows exactly where every suburb’s shops are located!

How about you start with the truly irrelevant signs like speed signs, Give Way and Stop signs (which are never obeyed anyway) and the roadside comedy signs such as “Roadworks speed limits enforced” and their ilk?

Sgt.Bungers said :

When High Street, Kensington in London was “renovated” a few years back…

That’s a fantastic success story, this is what I think they need to consider in Bunda St. Thanks for the article, Sgt.

Sgt.Bungers said :

Standard, international, no stopping sign…

I have seen this sign in movies and on TV for years, but I’ve never known what it meant until today. Perhaps I would have figured it out eventually if I found myself driving through Europe.

There is a no right turn sign on Piallago Ave near Brindabella business park where there no itersection. It’s between 2 roundabaouts and to the right of the sign is a nice landscaped lawn. Definitely an uneccessary one, methinks.

And in that area, what is the deal with the traffic lights on the new flyover bridge near the ariport? They look like they should be for a pedestrian crossing as there is no intersection but there are freeway blocks on either side and in the middle of the road.

Another uneccessary one is the sign announcing that you need to form 2 lanes (from one) on Wells Station drive. I can see the point if you were forming 2 lanes from 3, or going from 2 to 1, but not the other way round.

Best sign ever is the Stop sign in Fadden with “Hammer Time” stencilled on it!

Absolutely. More signs = more clutter. More clutter = ugly.

When High Street, Kensington in London was “renovated” a few years back, traffic engineers took a leaf out of the “shared space” book, but did not give full priority to people on foot over people in cars. None the less, traffic signs that were deemed unnecessary were removed, which ended up being the vast majority of them. Traffic barriers to stop pedestrians from crossing the road were removed, gutter heights were lowered. The result, a 44% decrease in crashes over the following two years.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/29/guardiancolumnists

Treat road users like idiots, and they’ll behave like idiots.

In regards to massive “No $ Area” signs on the GDE, clearly the ACT Gov didn’t think about interstate tourists when these were erected. How is an interstate tourist to know where “Belconnen Way and Ginninderra dr” are, as indicated on the signs? Rather than those massive signs, all that was needed was “No $ Area” signs placed on every second or third lamp post, then “End No $ Area” to mark the boundaries of the zone.

Don’t get me started on Australia as a whole continues to use English instead of symbols on our regulatory street signs. Why this country’s States and Territories consider the local population unable to learn and comprehend symbols, as other people all over the world must do in order to deal with language barriers, is beyond me.

Standard, international, no stopping sign that anybody can understand regardless of language: http://www.freefoto.com/images/41/08/41_08_80—Clearway-No-Stopping-Road-Sign_web.jpg

If you cannot read the road sign in the link below, then imagine how an international tourist who cannot read English must feel when they come across the “No $ Area” signs on the GDE 🙂

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/TW-Art025.3.png

I hate how in Canberra they just do those signs that say “town centre” or “woden” or “city” or whatever – if you are following a map, it is nice to have actual street names to look for, not just general clues.

Ryan said :

Felix the Cat said :

Another sign that I don’t understand is on GDE near the Belconnen Way off-ramp and it says something like “No $ area”. WTF is this about?

It’s to stop people parking on the grass in the middle of Gungahlin Drive when the Raiders or Brumbies are playing, rather than paying the $5 to park in the actual carparking.

No $ Area = No Stopping Area.

I don’t really see how an S with the standard circle/diagonal line through the middle could be seen as a dollar sign in the first place. If one can’t read or understand a simple no stopping sign, I don’t think they should be allowed a licence..

These signs are a total waste of money. For the idiots who don’t drive well, such signs won’t help.

Felix the Cat said :

Another sign that I don’t understand is on GDE near the Belconnen Way off-ramp and it says something like “No $ area”. WTF is this about?

It’s to stop people parking on the grass in the middle of Gungahlin Drive when the Raiders or Brumbies are playing, rather than paying the $5 to park in the actual carparking.

No $ Area = No Stopping Area.

I laugh every time I see the graffiti on the enormous green sign as you come over Kings Avenue towards Russell that reads: “BIG UGLY SIGN”

I spent a lot of time driving around in circles when I first moved to Canberra, mainly because of the signs that say “Town Centre”. As I would always end up in the *wrong* so called “Town Centre” I wondered how hard it would be to actually name the one that you might be heading to!?

Felix the Cat said :

Another sign that I don’t understand is on GDE near the Belconnen Way off-ramp and it says something like “No $ area”. WTF is this about?

Well if people actually knew their road signs and paid attention when learning to drive they would know that a ‘S’ with a cross through it means no stopping. So the sign is saying that between whatever roads are mentioned on the sign is a no stopping area.

I saw the sign not long ago and told my wife that it would be interesting to see who knew enough about their road signs and symbols to understand what it meant.Di you also know that when you go onto the Monaro Highway from Dairy road in Fyshwick, the broken line at the top of the entry ramp means you need to give way to traffic on the highway, not speed up and cut people off like most cars with ACT plates seem to do.

This is not a personal dig t you, unfortunately many people don’t know their road signs and symbols so all the signs need to written in full and then they take longer to read.

SPEED KILLS! Well not exactly. It happens when you stop. However while you are thinking about the literary merit of the sign, you bang into the car in front of you who is also so engaged. Road signs should provide information for the immediate circumstance not try to be some sort of ‘al fresco’ driving school.

thomped2 said :

I call NANNY STATE!
Bring back Natural selection…. (Darwin awards)

Quite.

As is universally acknowledged in the teaching profession; if you treat students like idiots, that’s precisely what they’ll turn out to be.

I think the most stupid signs are those that warn you of speed cameras. I think the damn things should not only be unsigned but also hidden; they might actually serve their purposes that way.

I call NANNY STATE!
Bring back Natural selection…. (Darwin awards)

Actually I wish there was a ‘Park in Bays Only’ sign at the Gowrie Oval! People park all over the shop including right down the middle of the parking lot, so everyone gets parked in and can’t even loop about to exit. Grrr! Wouldn’t happen if there was a sign!

The signs I hate are the nanny signs about dying in a ditch and suchlike. They are very distracting and anger-inducing. Wish they’d spend that money beautifying the vegetation on the road sides instead. (I am thinking of Isabella Drive – such a scruffy-looking arterial road. We only got roundabout plantings a few years ago- finally! – and HOW old is Tuggers? Such government neglect is shameful and does not give a good impression of Canberra. And the horrid signage just adds to the scruffiness).

The ANU campus has got to be one of the worst offenders here!

Well I don’t know about that, I wish they had more signs, as I was attempting to go along the parkway to tuggers, the road was closed off, no detour signs, no previous warning that the road would be closed, very annoying!

I thought exactly the same thing this morning when riding with my young fella. He pointed to a new sign and asked what it said.
It was one of those blue and white ones with a bike and pedestrian symbol with an arrow. That was it. I asked myself WTF before explaining to my son it was to explain we need to share the path with people walking. I rode on thinking whyTF and what a waste of money, not to mention the time and resources that would have gone with planning and implementing this ridiculous idea. F#cking Stanhope.

You forgot to mention all the “GIVE WAY”sign’s,on each and every roundabout.There are two(2)on every approach.Were these sign’s on special at GO LO?Buy one get 5000 free.Or were they at Hot Dollar, 4500 for $1.10 (inc GST)…Please explain

I have 2, both at The Canberra Hospital:
Firstly, at the entrance to the car park next to the helipad: a big yellow & black sign which states: “Ice may exist”. Existentialism at its best.
and Secondly, at the entry to the foot bridge leading to the Psychiatry ward: “Entry to Psych ward only, no exit” I imagine that would be fairly frightening if you were acutely disturbed and being admitted.

I cant say I mind the government spending money on stupid signs that promote road safety or provide directions.

Much more useful than spending money on stupid flower-pots on the Northbourne Ave street lights.

I agree there are a lot of what seems to be unnecessary signs around. The ones I particularly don’t like are the portable neon ones like the water usage ones (these ones are ok…just) but are actually advertising a shop sale, not some road hazard. I think Domayne in Fyshwick is a regular offender here. Another sign that I don’t understand is on GDE near the Belconnen Way off-ramp and it says something like “No $ area”. WTF is this about?

Canberra turns over a substantial number of residents right around this time every year. They are typically young, uni educated, spent a few years as a student (thus are used to living in penury and probably aren’t overweight, are used to walking or cycling and probably don’t own a car), just got a job, and need to decide whether to drive or not once they have a few grand together for a 2nd hand car.

Ideally it should be made as easy for them to cycle to local destinations as possible (and perhaps intertown as well).

These signs would help.

The “park in bays only” signs are there basically so they can book people who don’t park in marked bays in the carpark, otherwise it’s not signposted as no parking/stopping etc you can legally park there.

But yes there are signs out there that have little or no use..

I remember hearing on the ABC radio, good 20 or more years ago that there was a sign over kill, 800+ signs between the Federal Hwy border and Civic. With so many signs, it’s no wonder people tend to ignore (speed?) signs (I think that was the gist of the report).

Anyway, getting back to the “stupid” sign above, I would suggest it is not so stupid if you were a visitor here toddling along on your bike. A sign that said “Shops” might invoke a detour to the shops for coffee?

Taking a cue from Adelaide’s Torrens Linear park way, Canberra could do with some more signs on a grander scale. The Lake Burley Griffen loop is a prime candidate for lots of touristy information signs that are both visible, readable and maintained which could offer a lot more value for the tourist rider.

Canberra’s centenary is 2013, so maybe such signage could be made a centennial project.

my favorite one is the “Drv N txt U B Nxt” or whatever it is on the parkway. The first time i saw that, i could not read it (i still use full sentances and punctuation in SMS messages). I looked a bit longer than i should have and almost had an accident.

The irony was not lost on me.

The next time you drive around, really LOOK at all the signs in Canberra. We have far too many.