Page:Report of the Departmental Committee on Traffic Signs (1946).djvu/37

 recommend that no further signs of this nature should be approved. If there are adequate reasons why specified classes of vehicles should not use a particular road, effect should be given to them by formal Order or Regulation and signs of the standard form erected.

Speed limits

81. Diagrams 53, 54 and 55 show the signs authorised in connection with the 30 m.p.h. speed limit imposed in “built-up” areas by the provisions of the Road Traffic Act, 1934. The sign shown in diagram 53 is erected on both sides of the road at the beginning of the restricted section. The sign shown in diagram 54 is erected on the reverse side of that shown in diagram 53 to indicate the end of the restricted section to traffic leaving that section. The sign shown in diagram 55 is erected at intervals along sections of road provided with a system of street lighting, but on which no 30 m.p.h. speed limit is in force. We recommend no change in these signs.

Diagrams 56 and 57 show the types of sign used to give notice of special speed restrictions other than the 30 m.p.h. restriction in built-up areas. As in the case of the signs discussed in paragraph 80, we consider that the notice should be in the simplest possible form consistent with adequate display of the requirements of the Order or Regulation. In addition to the recom- mendations made on this point in paragraph 80, we recommend that where a restriction of speed is imposed (other than the general 30 m.p.h. limit) the extent of the restriction should be indicated either on the restricting sign by the use of the words “across bridge,” “through park,” etc., or by the erection at appropriate points of an informative sign “End of m.p.h. limit” (diagram 59). Diagram 58 shows the application of our recommendations to the sign shown in Diagram 57.

Where signs of the type shown in Diagram 56 have been erected to give notice of restrictions imposed under bye-laws made by the Secretary of State for War, it has been customary to display the words “War Department” the red ring. We consider this undesirable, as it may give rise to the erroneous impression that the restriction applies to War Department vehicles only.

Prohibition or restriction of waiting

82. The sign agreed by the Geneva 1931 Conference to indicate prohibition of waiting consists.of a red ring surrounding a blue disc with a diagonal red bar across the blue disc. In this country restrictions on waiting rarely provide for complete prohibition and the International sign would therefore seldom meet requirements. Present practice in Great Britain is based on the recommendations of the 1933 Committee which were, briefly, that the sign to be used to indicate restrictions on waiting should be a red ring surrounding a blue disc on which there should appear in white letters the nature of the restriction, or, if there were insufficient room to indicate this clearly, the words “Waiting restricted” should be shown on the blue disc and the details of the restriction displayed on a plate underneath. There has, in some instances, been a tendency to sacrifice clarity in order to avoid the necessity for an additional notice. In this connection we might mention a sign to which our attention was drawn, on which is inscribed on the blue disc “No waiting this side on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m.” In addition, a notice underneath the disc reads “On other weekdays, goods vehicles must not wait longer than necessary to load or unload and other vehicles not longer than 20 minutes during any one hour.” This is perhaps an extreme case, but it illustrates the desirability of simplification.

A sign illustrated in the 1933 Committee’s Report is worded “No waiting this side on even dates.” We do not regard this sign as satisfactory, since the