Page:Report of the Traffic Signs Committee (1963).pdf/23

 62. We refer to these signs in our section on temporary signs (paragraphs 198, 205 and 207).

63. With the exception of the No entry sign and waiting restriction signs all prohibitory signs are distinguished by a red circle with a white centre which usually carries a black symbol. Waiting restriction and limited parking signs are dealt with in paragraphs 83 to 87.

64. The Protocol No entry sign is the same as ours but without words. We see no reason why in this country the addition of words should be essential to its understanding and we recommend that they cease to be used (see figure 15).

65. We have considered to what extent this message would be more effectively presented in the mandatory form as in figure 12 or figure 13, as is increasingly being done on the Continent, rather than in the present prohibitory form. Either is of course possible, but in our view mandatory arrows would be less satisfactory at complicated junctions where one turn is prohibited and perhaps three or more permitted ; we think it would be more effective to continue to give drivers the simpler message, to which they are already accustomed, pro hibiting them from going in a single direction. If a wider use of the mandatory form develops abroad, we recommend that the case for its adoption be given further study.

We thus recommend the sign shown at figure 9 in place of the present No right turn sign, and the sign at figure 10 to indicate No left turn. When these signs are used at signal controlled junctions they should invariably be internally illuminated and mounted above the traffic signals.

Suggestions have been made that there should be differentiation by colour between No right turn and No left turn signs. The Protocol makes no provision for this and we do not consider it necessary since the direction in which the cancelled symbol points makes the distinction obvious even from a distance.

66. We recommend that this prohibition be indicated by the sign at figure 17, qualified when appropriate by the plate at figure 17a.

67. This prohibition should be expressed by the sign at figure 16, which we think will be used so rarely that it should always be supplemented by a plate bearing the words 'No vehicles' together with any exceptions which apply.

This Protocol sign not hitherto used in the United Kingdom indicates that the street is 'closed to all vehicles in both directions whereas the No entry sign prohibits the use of the street in only one direction.