Driver Safety Education Blog

Traffic signs - help, hinder, ignore? Many drivers today don't come to a full stop at a stop sign. A rolling stop, or yield sign response, seems to be what many drivers do. Why? To gain a second or two? Lazy? Believe the stop sign doesn't apply to them? Believe they are too important to stop? In a hurry? See the sign but it has no impact anymore?

Why do some drivers exceed the posted speed limit in residential neighbourhoods - where you know there are kids playing? Heck, they speed through school zones. On main thoroughfares it is quite common to speed 5-10 KM over the speed limit. Even the Police in marked vehicles do it. However, when driving on confined streets with parked cars to obscure your view and kids and dogs playing, there is a need to slow down. Why do some drivers on a 4 lane highway drive in the passing lane even though they are going slower than the traffic? In order to help drivers regain their awareness of the surroundings and the traffic signs posted for their benefit, and the benefit of other drivers and pedestrians, some jurisdictions have come up with novel ways to get the attention of drivers.

Tom Vanderbilt, author of "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)", has a blog which has some excellent examples of eye-catching road signs. The blog is called. "How We Drive, the Blog of Tom Vanderbilt's Traffic - Traffic Signs". My favourite example is the first one in the blog.
Tom Vanderbilt also is a guest speaker at a number of conferences, including Transportation, and he will be a keynote presenter at the Edmonton Traffic Safety Conference (Edmonton's 2nd International Conference on Urban Traffic Safety), to be held in April of this year.
By the way, Tom has provided some stats from his book on a page called, "Some Things About Traffic That May Surprise You". Really interesting reading!
Also have a look at this fascinating article called, "The Traffic Guru" by Tom Vanderbilt, which appeared in the Wilson Quarterly, Summer 2008.

Some other examples which were found on the web are shown below.

Watch out for large animals - like a Moose...

And this one catches you...

This is good...

Well, you get the idea. So let's start thinking outside the box and come up with traffic signs that really get a driver's attention to slow down and be aware, without being more of a distraction than any other traffic sign.

Drive safe...

Cheers - Mike