Page:Report of the Departmental Committee on Traffic Signs (1946).djvu/18

 think it necessary to draw attention to this aspect, and recommend that where signs are not otherwise sufficiently conspicuous an artificial background should be provided.

Clarity

10. In making our recommendations we have kept constantly before us the need for clarity both in the information given by the sign and in its presentation. Within certain limits symbols possess great advantages in this respect, but only so long as their meaning is well known and they are not used in such variety as to make instant comprehension of the message of any sign a feat of memory. Any printed matter on signs should be worded as simply and concisely as possible and its layout, and the size of letters used, should be designed so that the essential information is taken in by the road user in the shortest possible time.

Siting

11. In addition to the need to site signs where they can readily be seen and understood, it is important for traffic flow and traffic safety that their message should be received by the road user in good time to allow him to take appropriate action. We recognise that the faster speed of present-day traffic necessitates in many cases increased distance between warning signs and points of danger, and we have dealt with this aspect in paragraph 22 of our Report.

Erection on a uniform system

12. We desire to stress the essential importance of uniformity. The road user should be able to feel confident that signs are erected only where necessary for his safety or convenience, and that the same message will always be conveyed to him in the same manner. In particular we deprecate strongly the tendency to draw attention to danger points by the erection of signs or symbols of a non-standard or exaggerated character. Departure from authorised standards, either in the form of sign or in the manner in which it is used, results only in depreciation of the system as a whole.

International Agreements

13. Throughout our deliberations we have kept before us the desirability of conforming a& far as possible to agreed International practice.

There have been three International Conferences at which traffic signs have been discussed and Conventions regarding their use have been drawn up. These Conferences were held at Paris in 1909 and 1926 and at Geneva in 1931. The formal agreements reached at these Conferences will be referred to as the Paris 1909, Paris 1926 and Geneva 1931 Conventions respectively.

In 1939 Great Britain ratified the Paris 1926 Convention and by so doing undertook to use, for certain specific purposes, only those signs which were then agreed. These signs are five in number and they indicate respectively the proximity of a cross road, a sharp turn, an unguarded or ungated level crossing, a guarded or gated level crossing, and an uneven patch of road (e.g. a very pronounced depression in a road due to a watercourse). As normally there is no occasion to use the last-named sign in this country, it has not been authorised under the Road Traffic Act, 1930. The remaining four signs are authorised by the 1933 Provisional Regulations and are shown in diagrams 1, 7, 15 and 16 in Appendix VI of this Report.

The 1933 Committee recommended that, if permissible under the terms of the Paris 1926 Convention, the signs illustrated in diagrams 9, 10, 12 and 13 should continue to be used for dangerous bends in preference to those shown in diagrams 7 and 11. If that were not practicable they considered that