Road Signs

First some History:

• Road Signs were invented a long time ago, I remember Dick Whittington looked at a Road Sign on the way to London, and he was walking because cars hadn't been invented. They're that old!
• In the 1960's the UK did some work and basically came up with a brilliant system that 99% of those of you reading should know quite well. This was introduced in 1965 and has been modified over time.
• In 1968 a lot of the world signed the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic, they took 9 years to actually introduce it though.
• For some reason the Vienna Convention didn't follow the system that the UK had, I think they must have been jealous, therefore the UK didn't Sign.
• In 1995 St Helena produced their Road Traffic (Signs) Regulations, these were amended in 2002,  http://www.sainthelena.gov.sh/data/files/resources/723/Road-Traffic-Ordinance.pdf, they sort of follow the UK sign designs, but don't really.

Back to the present day (Well last Wednesday)

The signs are a mess. Many signs in use aren't in the regulations. Parking signs are huge and take an hour to read, they're also illegal if they're landscape. Many signs in the regulations are used incorrectly (or the regulations are written incorrectly). The regulations say what you think they mean, but because of the way they're written they mean something completely different. As an example our equivalent of a double white line should mean no overtaking. What it can actually mean is that if you are overtaking as you pass the beginning of the line, you have to stay on the wrong side of the line until it finishes, you're not allowed to cross it in either direction, but you are allowed to be on the wrong side of it!

In the photo you can see our Traffic Lights. This is a photo of the first time Traffic lights have been in operation on St Helena, as far as anyone knows, ever.

They were bought a few years ago, but nobody knows if they were ever turned on. Recently we have been unable to make them work, until we had a phone call from the manufacturer offering to help us sort the problem (that's why I'm on the phone, typically they worked first time, without actually needing any help, which they hadn't any of the million times we'd tried previously).

So now we have traffic lights - but wait! there's no requirement in the law for people to Stop at Traffic Lights! We've never needed one before! 

A little over a week ago

I was in a Highway Authority meeting and we were talking about parking, we started talking about signs and the fact that our current signs were quite big, I mentioned that I thought we should be following UK standards a little closer, but that idea wasn't liked. Jamestown does not want to look like a suburb of London, and wants it's own identity, the current system of Road Signs is part of that identity, but needs updating to make it suitable (and more understandable for the international Tourists we hope to attract).

Fast Forward to Last Week and the coming Months

Someone has to design new signs which suit St Helena AND are fit for Purpose. How many people (currently alive) can say that they have designed (or even redesigned) a system of Road Signs for a Country (however small)? Not many, double figures probably. I hope to join that Club J

The amazing thing is the liberty that is given to the system designer. UK signs are defined by x-height and stroke-width. With borders and corner radius specified in detailed technical manuals. Specialist software has been developed to aid Engineers in producing sign designs which are correct to the regulations. Whilst wanting to have a professional set of road signs we can't be having special software just for St Helena.

I've been drawing Road Signs in Word for many years, they look about right for visual purposes, but wouldn't meet the legal requirements. I now plan to define the signing standards in terms of Font Height and border widths in Point Size. Colours could be to an RGB standard. Easy to draw on any computer package such as Word. What do you think?

p.s. In the photo I have a thick coat, it's cold - I haven't got fat!