Advisory Committee on Traffic Signs for Motorways

“ We have had uppermost in our minds the need to give to users of the motorways clear and simple directions which can be read and understood, at the higher speeds for which the motorways are designed, in ample time for them to make the necessary manœuvres with safety to themselves and to others. There is the further point that, in view of the widely spaced intervals between intersections and the fact that no turning is allowed on the motorway, the inconvenience of missing an exit is great . ”

“ On the other hand a motorist who wishes to use the motorway should be able to follow a consistent series of signs while he approaches the motorway and after that until he leaves it. Our attempt to cater for both drivers by combining the two colour schemes on the same sign having, we believe, proved unsuccessful, we have been forced to choose between them, and our choice has been partly determined by the consideration that the white on blue sign will give all drivers a warning that they are approaching a junction with a motorway. ”

“ The sign at present in use on the London-Yorkshire Motorway to indicate excluded traffic, while in accordance with an earlier recommendation from us, is slightly different from that illustrated in figure 10. It is headed 'Prohibited on motorway' and the word 'NO' in the body of the text is of course omitted. It suffers from the disadvantage that it does not make it clear that the motorway Regulations are effective from the point at which it is sited, and drivers have been known to stop on the slip roads under the impression that they are allowed to do so. ”

“ As has already been mentioned, it is essential that drivers should receive sufficient warning of an exit to enable them to get into the left-hand lane in readiness to turn off the motorway without endangering other traffic. This means that signs must be provided well in advance of the exit and that they must be repeated so that there is no risk of other traffic obscuring them at the crucial time. We propose the provision of three direction signs in advance of the exit and one at the exit itself. ”

“ Having regard to the present regrettable need to use dipped lights in the face of oncoming traffic on the motorway, and to the fact that on a three-lane carriageway the signs, on the left of the hard shoulder, are even further to the side of the fastest traffic than they are at Preston, we consider the use of reflecting material to be very much a second best alternative as compared with electric lighting. ”

“ Traffic joining the Preston By-Pass at the only intermediate junction along the motorway must leave the all-purpose road at one of two roundabouts depending on which carriageway of the motorway it wishes to join. At the present time these two roundabouts are signposted separately, and some drivers have shown an understandable reluctance to pass the first roundabout when in fact they should proceed along the all-purpose road to the second one, of whose existence they may however be unaware. ”

“ We do not think it either necessary or desirable to attempt to show on the advance direction sign preceding the slip road whether the places shown on it lie to the left or right of the motorway. At this stage the essential need is to tell motorists wishing to leave the motorway that their way off is to the left, and the junction symbol we recommend has been chosen with that end in view. The eventual route to be taken will be given by a further direction sign on the slip road leading to the point where the normal road system is joined. Lettering 14. ”

“ We feel, however, that in designing a traffic sign regard must be paid to the space around the lettering as well as to the lettering itself, and that a sign that completely filled the space available would be so unattractive as to be quite unacceptable. ”

“ It is apparent that it is unnecessary to deflect the signs both laterally and vertically, and since we understand that small specified inclinations to the vertical plane present a difficult problem of erection we consider it sufficient to rely on a lateral deflection to eliminate shine. Though it is also apparent that except on left-hand bends signs at right-angles to the road will tend to reflect light away from the road, even on straight roads some lateral angling of the sign will probably be necessary to prevent reflection back on to the road from irregularities in the surface of the sign . ”

“ The problem of signposting dual carriageway roads without level intersections, many of them carrying three lanes of traffic in each direction and all designed for speeds of 70 m.p.h. and restricted to certain classes of traffic, is entirely new in this country, and we thought it desirable that before making final recommendations we should have the opportunity of seeing the effect of provisional proposals under working conditions. ”

“ We have considered whether the American practice should be adopted of providing a sign to give warning to the main motorway traffic that vehicles may here be merging with it. We consider that provided the mouth of the entry slip road and the boundary of the acceleration lane are sufficiently clearly marked on the carriageway, a sign of this kind should not be necessary. ”

“ There is little reason for building a motorway unless traffic can find its way to it. With this in mind we have designed a distinctive series of signs, intended to be attached to existing direction signs on all-purpose roads, to indicate the route to the motorway from places as much as ten miles or more from it. ”

“ The large expanse of white background on a sign this size is very unsightly, and we were particularly concerned about the effect on the eye when it travelled quickly from the image of dark lettering on a light ground to the opposite image of light on dark. We accordingly considered the possibility of employing the white on blue colour scheme for the entire sign and distinguishing between the all-purpose road and motorway directions by using upper case lettering for the one and lower case lettering for the other. ”

“ Each service area will contain, as a minimum, one filling station (with facilities for emergency repairs) on each side of the motorway; transport cafe; vehicle parks; cafeteria; public telephones and toilet facilities. It may also include a restaurant. A covered footbridge over the motorway will link the two sides of each area for pedestrians, but motor traffic will not be allowed to pass across the motorway from one side to the other. ”

“ We feel it should not be necessary to devise a special sign to deal with the rare driver who might venture on to the motorway with insufficient fuel to take him to the next intersection, and we do not therefore consider that there is any need to add such a sign to the number of signs before each intersection which our recommendations necessarily entail. ”

“ We have not considered the signposting of urban motorways in detail, but the recommendations we have already made are generally applicable to urban as to rural motorways. The main distinguishing features of the urban motorway will probably be the closer spacing of junctions and the fact that it may be carried for some distance by a viaduct, so that there may not be room for the roadside advance direction signs we have recommended for most junctions. ”

“ It is for this reason that we have attached so much importance to our consideration of the foreign systems, as codified, for they have been evolved in the light of practical experience of the peculiar conditions inevitable on motorways, experience which was not available, except vicariously, to ourselves or to any of the expert bodies in this country whose advice we sought. The American and European sign-posting systems have much in common, but in detail our recommendations are closer to European practice. ”

“ We must particularly acknowledge the valuable assistance given to us by the Road Research Laboratory, especially in arranging a demonstration of photographs and diagrams at the Laboratory to illustrate practice abroad, in organising practical demonstrations of various experimental signs at Hendon Aerodrome, which we saw at speed both by day and by night, and in undertaking special research into the legibility distance of various kinds of lettering and signs. ”

“ We are aware that in some cases local feelings may possibly be offended by the use of an abbreviated form of the place-name, and we ourselves consider that in all cases the full name is ideally to be preferred and that abbreviations should be used only as a last resort; we hope that local bodies will recognise, however, that the interests of economy and speedy legibility by the motoring public may sometimes make such abbreviations unavoidable. ”

“ Clearly, if this island is to serve its purpose, and is not to be a source of confusion and danger, it must be preceded by an adequate warning sign which makes it clear that there is an island ahead and that vehicles may pass either side of it, depending only on the side of the road they happen to be on already. ”

“ The conventional black and white pointer signs should be used on allpurpose roads at junctions with the motorway to point to or along the allpurpose arms of the junction, and standard 'No Entry' signs should be erected to prevent traffic attempting to join the motorway by means of an exit slip road. ”

“ Emergency Signs 72. Signs will be needed from time to time to indicate temporary obstructions of the carriageway in the event of accident or when road works are being carried out. We cannot emphasise too strongly the need to ensure that clear and early warning is provided of any obstruction occurring on these high speed roads. This will call for quicker and more informed thought and action than anything that the road traffic authorities in this country are likely to have encountered in the past. ”

“ Moreover, we consider it likely that an increasingly cosmopolitan motoring public will encounter more and more lower case lettering on signs of all kinds and will come to expect it, among other places, on the motorway. We see no point in ourselves pursuing further experiments when there is so little choice between alternative areas and legibilities, and while taste plays so important a part, as we believe it should.
Size of Lettering 19. The size of the lettering on a sign is determined by the distance at which the sign is to be read . ”

“ There has been a complicated mass of material to assimilate and to present to us and we have been very satisfied with the clarity and thoroughness with which this has been achieved and with the skill that has been shown in drawing up our decisions in a form suitable if necessary for publication. ”

“ These difficulties may be partly due to a contrast in colour between motorway and slip road, producing an inhibiting effect on drivers intending to leave the motorway, and this inhibiting effect may be enhanced by the very wide broken white line separating the deceleration lane and slip road from the motorway-the object of which is, of course, to prevent drivers entering the slip road by mistake. ”

“ Until the motorway construction programme is completed there are bound to be individual lengths of motorway which are scheduled for eventual extension but which for the time being end at junctions with all-purpose roads which will ultimately be merely intermediate junctions along the finished motorway. ”

“ The signs we recommend in this section differ in one or two respects from those erected at Preston in accordance with our provisional recommendations, the most important difference being that at Preston it is the second, not the third, advance direction sign that gives the forward destination of the motorway. When we saw the actual signs in place at Preston we felt that the absence of any indication at the exit, especially at night, of the continuation of the motorway was a defect. ”

“ Double names like Leighton Buzzard can sometimes be suitably dealt with by putting the two parts on different lines, reducing the vertical spacing between the two words as compared with that between two different names, and indenting the second part to show that both words form one name.
Mileages 40. We recognise that there is value in giving information about the distance to places which are signposted on the motorways but we do not agree that this is of prime importance. ”

“ At an early stage in our work we became convinced that the detailed design of the lettering, layout, symbols, arrows and other features of the signs we now recommend called for the advice of a professional designer. ”