Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Signs

I am always interested in public signs. As in:- " Do not throw stones at this sign"  for example." No swimming, fishing, or boating" is a frequent one on the Okanagan river as it is strewn with weirs that suck you under. The ducks and geese take no notice however, and neither do out-of-town strangers, one or two of whom every summer drown. This one from yesterday's walk is definitely odd. One can see the gate is closed. But just in case you didn't notice, you can read about it. In Downtown Penticton the signs say maximum speed 30Km/hr, but also in case you didn't notice, it is written all over the roadway at frequent intervals. At Pigeon Lake the signs not only say 30Km/hr but they add "Strictly Enforced". In areas of importance to safety in BC they put speed signs twice the size, as if the ones who disregard speed limits are short-sighted. Maybe some of the people are: we were honked at twice the other day by a tailgater in a 30Km/hr playground zone!
( probably we were doing the speed limit posted)
Okanagan Falls Provincial Park

Bilingual Sign

Stolen Road Sign in a local Penticton Garden
In Canada signs have to be bilingual, although very few of us folk are. In Quebec they have "Stop" signs in French, but in France they are in English. To conclude, I think it would be a good idea to take all the speed limit signs down, and replace them with a few illuminated signs showing compulsory speed limits varying according to conditions. That would be too expensive though...they work on the M1 don't they?

4 comments:

jennyfreckles said...

They are on the M1 but whether they work or not is a moot point... You'd have liked the one featured in our newspapers the other day: 'Keep Klear' painted on the road outside a fire station!

Angela Häring-Christen said...

Viele herrliche Fotos habt ihr gemacht während meiner Pause.
Jetzt habe ich hoffentlich wieder mehr Zeit euren Blog zu verfolgen.
Herzliche Grüsse aus der Schweiz
Angela

Alan Burnett said...

I am a fellow believer in the idea of getting rid of 90% of all the thousands of signs that congest our roads. One of the projects I have in mind for later this month is to conduct an audit of the number of road-signs within a half mile of my house. I will share the results with you.

Michael and Hanne said...

Thank you for all your interesting comments! We shall look forward to your report Alan!