Page:Report of the Traffic Signs Committee (1963).pdf/78

 This will be necessary also for the new transverse markings which we have recommended should be used as widely as possible to distinguish minor from major roads at junctions. Indeed the greatly extended use of warning lines, lane markings and 'catseyes' which we have advocated will call for equally improved maintenance services.

289. More attention needs to be given to preventing the obscuration of road side signs by the foliage of trees and the growth of hedges.

290. It is because these maintenance services are so important that we have recommended in paragraph 300 that in future classification grants be made conditional upon evidence being produced that adequate maintenance services have been regularly carried out.

291. There is growing public concern about the way in which the appearance of our roads is being spoiled by the ill co-ordination, and sometimes the excessive provision, of signs, notices, advertisements and other street furniture. We think it right to consider to what extent traffic signs are guilty in this respect and what should be done about sign clutter.

The increase in vehicles has perforce been accompanied by more traffic regulations and prohibitory and mandatory signs have multiplied. Clearly it is essential for safety and ease of travel, as well as to secure compliance with the law, that adequate traffic signs should be provided and maintained. But we believe they can be improved in siting, and in some places reduced in number, both in towns and in the country.

Certain local authorities have taken this problem in hand and, sometimes with the help of national and local amenity bodies, have achieved valuable improvements. As experience has shown the tidying up of urban streets can often result in traffic signs becoming more easily visible, especially if care is taken to prevent them being obscured or outshone by advertisements and other distracting notices by night as well as by day. In the interests of public safety we hope that local planning authorities will exercise to the full their powers to ensure that traffic signs are not obscured or impaired by advertisements.

292. Elsewhere (paragraphs 264 to 280) we have made detailed recommendations about the mounting of signs often with the primary aim of reducing street clutter. For instance we have advocated that signs should be mounted together rather than on separate posts, if it can be done effectively, and that they should be put on existing structures such as lamp posts or walls if available, provided their visibility is not impaired. When new signs are erected highway authorities should ensure that they are well arranged and that those superseded are removed. Many of the new signs we have recommended are in themselves better integrated than the old ones because they contain the whole of their message within a simple triangular or circular shape, whereas existing signs have surmounting triangles, discs or circles in addition to the plate containing the legend. We have also made suggestions (paragraphs 85 to 87) for reducing the frequency, variety and complexity of waiting restriction signs.

293. Together these suggestions should make some contribution to the reduction of clutter, but of course the problem goes far wider than traffic signs.