signs signs everywhere the signs
February 16th, 2006carcounsel was founded on the principle that there is too much information for the consumer to process effectively. In an age of falso advertising, sales and marketing claims we’ve adopted a ‘less is more’ and ‘quality over quantity’ approach that resonates with each of our clients.
According to two pieces we came across recently, a similar approach is needed when it comes to road signs. First there’s this piece from What Car?.
motorists can only expect to cope with between three and seven pieces of information at a time, and instinctively recognise this because they turn down radios when they need to concentrate.
Next up is this piece from Wired
Hans Monderman is a traffic engineer who hates traffic signs. Oh, he can put up with the well-placed speed limit placard or a dangerous curve warning on a major highway, but Monderman considers most signs to be not only annoying but downright dangerous… The approach is radically counterintuitive: Build roads that seem dangerous, and they’ll be safer… The common thread in the new approach to traffic engineering is a recognition that the way you build a road affects far more than the movement of vehicles. It determines how drivers behave on it, whether pedestrians feel safe to walk alongside it, what kinds of businesses and housing spring up along it. “A wide road with a lot of signs is telling a story,” Monderman says. “It’s saying, go ahead, don’t worry, go as fast as you want, there’s no need to pay attention to your surroundings. And that’s a very dangerous message.”
Another sign that causes accidents? Believe it or not speed limit signs. You see studies have shown that it’s not speed itself that kills but speed differentials – if some cars are doing 60 and others 80 there are more lane changes and accidents. If everyone is doing 75 traffic flows more smoothly and safely from exit to exit. Proof: when the national limit of 55mph was dropped the death toll went down more sharply than ever before.
And that’s a fact.