Road Signs

Where would we be without signs as communication? Signs are defintly good if they are communicate right.

Where did signs start off as communication?

Cave Paintings- Whether or not they were signs or paintings it was some of the first originators of signs.

Stop signs originated in Michigan in 1915. The first ones had black letters on a white background and were 24 by 24 inches (61 × 61 cm), somewhat smaller than the current sign

If we didn't have road signs to tell us what and not to do where would we be. Maybe I could look at a section of road signs either:

Horse Riders

Cyclists

Mobility Scooters

Motorcyclists

Pedestrians

Lorries

Background taken from wiki:

Road traffic crashes are one of the world’s largest public health and injury prevention problems. The problem is all the more acute because the victims are overwhelmingly healthy prior to their crashes. According to the World Health Organization more than a million people are killed on the world’s roads each year.

The standard measures used in assessing road safety interventions are fatalities and Killed or Seriously Injured (KSI) rates, usually per billion (10⁹) passenger kilometres. In the United States, crashes per million vehicle miles is typically used for road safety.

Speed is a key goal of modern road design, but impact speed affects the severity of injury to both occupants and pedestrians. For occupants, Joksch (1993) found the probability of death for drivers in multi-vehicle accidents increased as the fourth power of impact speed (often referred to by the mathematical term δv ("delta V"), meaning change in velocity). Injuries are caused by sudden, severe acceleration (or deceleration), this is difficult to measure. However, crash reconstruction techniques can be used to estimate vehicle speeds before a crash. Therefore, the change in speed is used as a surrogate for acceleration.

Interventions take many forms. Contributing factors to highway crashes may be related to the driver (such as driver error, illness or fatigue), the vehicle (brake, steering, or throttle failures) or the road itself (lack of sight distance, poor roadside clear zones, etc). Interventions may seek to reduce or compensate for these factors, or reduce the severity of crashes that do occur. A comprehensive outline of interventions areas can be seen in Management systems for road safety.

Espically Designed for pedestrians and cyclists could narrow Road signs down to cyclists as I wanted to do one of the five on cyclists aswel.

Pedestrians and Cyclists are among the most vulnerable road users, and in some countries constitute over half of all road deaths. Interventions aimed at improving safety of non-motorised users:

• Sidewalks of suitable width for the expected pedestrian traffic
• pedestrian crossings close to the desire line which allow pedestrians to cross roads safely
• segregated pedestrian routes and cycle lanes away from the main highway
• Overbridges (tend to be unpopular with pedestrians and cyclists due to additional distance and effort)
• Underpasses (these can pose heightened risk from crime is not designed well, can work for cyclists in some cases)
• traffic calming and speed humps
• low speed limits that are rigorous enforced, possibly by speed cameras
• shared space schemes giving ownership of the road space and equal priority to all road users, regardless of mode of use
• pedestrian barriers to prevent pedestrians crossing dangerous locations

Pedestrians' advocates question the equitability of schemes if they impose extra time and effort on the pedestrian to remain safe from vehicles, for example overbridges with long slopes or steps up and down, underpasses with steps and addition possible risk of crime and at-grade crossings off the desire line. The Make Roads Safe was criticised in 2007 for proposing such features. Successful pedestrian schemes tend to avoid over-bridges and underpasses and instead use at-grade crossings (such as pedestrian crossings) close the intended route. Successful cycling scheme by contrast avoid frequent stops even if some additional distance is involved given that the main effort required for cyclists is starting off.

In Costa Rica 57% of road deaths are pedestrians, however a partnership between AACR, Cosevi, MOPT and iRAP has proposed the construction of 190 km of pedestrian footpaths and 170 pedestrian crossings which could save over 9000 fatal or serious injuries over 20 years.

To conclude road signs for cyclists and pedestrians could be one of the five as it would kill two birds with one stone (Cycling). Also there is alot of information on the subject aswel to prove why it is important and good. Maybe could look at danger roads for cyclists and look at the number of injuries after a sign has been used???