Too Many Signs Dangerous

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17607, 24 October 1931, Page 9

Too Many Signs Dangerous

, THE question has been raised in j America, ami .in. New Zealand the point could well be taken by many local bodies, as to whether, in tlie anxiety to give the motor vehicle driver warping of any possible danger in the roadway, the system of Warning signs has been carried too far. Mr. Robbins B. btoeckol, commissioner of motor vehicles for Connecticut, raises this question in a bulletin recently released by his department. “It is no aid to safety, but may be the opposite,” says Mr. Sfoeckel, “to have so many direction signs that no one will pay any attention to any of them; to have white division lipes on joit<is where they ate ,riot needed; to have too lrtiicli headlight power where conditions do not warrant fast driving at night and to have numerous signs which do not mean what they pay, shell as ‘stop’ signs in places where the message should be ‘caution!’ ” Almost any driver lias seen signs erected by the roadside, Warning hint of a curve and has slowed down with prbper caution, only 1.0 find that the curve presents no difficulty and no danger. The tendency in such cases is to begin to disregard any signs reading “curve.” Now there pro some curves, short, angled swings, where any driver fit to operate a .motor vehicle would want to slow down to make the turn. Such curves should have the cautionary sign. But if the real warning of such signs has been weakened by over use, even a .careful driver iriity run into an accident by disregarding the warning that, has been given.