this post was submitted on 03 May 2025
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Don't signs usually have a line through it when it means "no", or is that just american signage?
You must pay the rent
I can't pay the rent
We ain't got the money for the mortgage on the farm!
instructions unclear, the banana is up my ass
Ah , you've got the instructions upside-down. I'll help...
You missed the "Caution: A Bannana" sign then didn't you?
there were three bananas before the caution sign and I slipped
Also, stop signs are ~~hexagonal~~ octagonal and yield signs triangular so you could notice them even when they're not facing you.
Edit: octagon/hexagon
Stop signs are octagonal.
Red state. We can't afford the extra 2 sides.
Thanks, forgot how the shapes work lol
Or when covered in snow or if the sign is badly damaged
This should be in drivers education in Europe
Drivers in Europe, and I assume most of the world, do have to have several theoretical classes about driving and safety to earn their license. Is this not the case where you live?
Yes of course. It is super rigorous. With both required extensive theoretical classes, theoretical test, required session with driving on ice, minimum hours of driving, and a driving test.
I mean't the humor for teaching it
they are, aren't they? not with a banana ofc, but I know they are categorized based on shape and color.
Thats confusing.
European bike lanes (like this one should probably depict) are round and solid blue with a bike depicted on them.
In Europe, lanes, where biking is prohibited are denoted by a round white sign with a relative wide red border (circle) and a bike depicted at its center.
I feel like a single line through would have been the correct design choice, still, because in practically every other context, that's what's used (no smoking signs, for example).
Seems like many, many other places around the world put a line through for road signs (though a couple outside Europe don't, and even some inside Europe do): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibitory_traffic_sign
My 2¢, Europe is wrong on this one, despite being right on so much else haha
A line obscures the thing it's trying to explain. Visually noisy, hard to read.
if I didn't already know better, i would have interpreted these two signs to be synonymous.
Mandatory signs are road signs that are used to set the obligations of all traffic that uses a specific area of road. Most mandatory road signs are circular in shape and may use white symbols on a blue background with a white border, or black symbols on a white background with a red border, although the latter is also associated with prohibitory signs.
i am now more confused than I was before.
Learning Vienna Convention road signs takes a few minutes for the basic principles, an hour or two for the really arcane signs such as "watch out for carriages" and "levy ahead".
The system is superior to the North American hell system by a huge margin, not least of which because it allows me to drive to Spain or Czechia without needing to study their traffic laws and learn the local language. The signs will be very similar and their meanings otherwise easy to intuit.
Now let me blow your mind: you already do this in NA. But you stopped at yield signs and stop signs. Their shape is immediately recognizable and parseable even if you don't speak English or even if they are covered in snow (that's on purpose). Now just imagine every sign is like that instead of the designers giving up and writing some text on a yellow rectangle. "Road work ahead"? Bitch, just put a schematic road worker in a red triangle instead of making me read shit at 90 km/h, this ain't book club!
You can’t claim superiority just because a lot of countries adopted it, you can only claim wide adoption
… I joke have gone with your view on the assumption that it’s a newer standard so likely better thought out, but not from this thread. Y’all are convincing me of the opposite
Us system makes better use of shapes, colors, and slashes to be more explicit
US system uses a lot of text, which is unquestionably bad. Also, it uses more slashed singes, which has upsides, it is indeed more intuitive, but also downsides, it's more cluttered.
But it doesn't really matter because you need to learn the system in any way, there isn't one that is just intuitively known, and you have to learn both of them. And in this case I would prefer one that is more widely adopted.
Red means stop not road work. Here orange is used for road work.
Plus some things really need text.
How would that 60 means 60 km to next town with the name.
If it meant that it would have the name of the town on it.
Right so you can't really remove all reading from road signs
One is for waterbikes, one is for Fancy Dress Bicycles Only
They don't have Cotillion Warning Signage in Europe?
No wonder we have so much trouble getting along. /S
Yeah a / would make more intuitive.
Neither is more intuitive, it's just what you're used to, culturally. Europeans could equally go to America, see a white sign with black symbol and red border and remark upon learning that it indicates a bike lane 'That's just not intuitive'.
Bike lanes in NA are denigrated by the police/delivery drivers parking in them.
Yeah agree.
Is there a problem having a little line through the thing you’re not supposed to do?
/American (sorry) question
Unfortunately, Americans often mis-interpret those as Speed Lines and put the pedal to the metal.
That is used for cancelling a previous sign.
My interpretation:
1: Purposefully drive over all yellow squares. (But only if you are piloting a tricycle)
2: No more 30 kph limit, fly, you fool!
Y'all have some weird driving laws.
This is also used on town/city signs to indicate when you are leaving it (at least in Poland)
Technically that is also canceling the previous sign that said you are entering the town.
Now I want to expatriate for the sole purpose of swapping welcome to and you are leaving signs outside of small towns in Europe.
Ooooh how interesting!!
Thanks for the embeds as well
In the Netherlands (where this is depicted) it's typically a white sign with black letters and a red line around it for prohibited, or blue with white text for required
So a white sign with black numbers 80 and a red line around it means prohibited to drive faster than 80, s similar sign with a biker means forbidden for bikes there. If it's a blue sign with a bike, it means bikes are required ro go here.
A line through it actually means "end of this particular prohibition"
...does a blue sign with a white 80 mean you must travel at least that quickly?..we have minimum speeds posted stateside, although it's not common...
I can only talk about the Netherlands: Round white sign with a red band, black letters: maximum speed Square blue sign with white letters, advisory speed (advisory speed < maximum speed - 20 )
There is no minimum speed (round blue sign white letters): this is for the simple reason you could technically be ticketed in the case of a traffic jam, yield sign or traffic light
Yeah, as far as I learned, that would be the minimum speed you have to drive in this segment of the road.
Usually, as crossed out sign means it got annulled but there are also some signs, like the sign prohibiting U-turns that have a line through them. But generally the coloring is the major indicator.
At least in the UK which has a lot of common signage with the rest of Europe you normally just have a red circle sign (generally prohibitive orders) with the picture of a disallowed vehicle in. Or a blank interior for 'no vehicles'. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/traffic-signs