Should the US abide by the Convention on Road Signs and Signals?

[skluth]

Back in the 60s and 70s, the Convention on Road Signs and Signals, aka the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals, standardized the road signs seen in most countries around the world. These signs have little text and require drivers to memorize several dozen different signs rather than rely on whether a driver is literate. It sounds like a lot, but I had to memorize them when I was stationed in Spain back in the 80s so I could drive my car. I don't recall anyone not passing the test, so it's not like it would be an impediment to driving and those growing up with the new signs would already know most of the meanings by the time they got their licenses.

I'm sure this discussion has come up before but I couldn't find one in my search and it may have been long enough ago to start a new discussion. If someone knows an old thread, feel free to add it so we can happily rehash the discussion from our new, post-pandemic worldview. (jk, but I'd be happy seeing what's already been discussed since it would be new to me.)

[Dirt Roads]

Since our National Highway System does not have a standardized means for differentiating which roads are subject to the special rules and regulations governing limited access highways (freeways) and partially-limited access highways, it seems like we still something similar to the international "Motorway" signage:



Obviously, states that have similar rules and regulations for partially-limited access highways need to have a similar sign with a different image (and perhaps a different color). 

For those of you not as familiar with my position on this topic, I would prefer a numbering and signage system for the entire NHS that is coordinated with the Interstate system.

[Rothman]

We'll use their signs if they get off the metric system.

[kphoger]

The US didn't sign the convention, so no.

[Max Rockatansky]

The US didn't sign the convention, so no.

This, plus as a personal opinion I tend to find international road signage is more boring than the current MUTCD.  I wouldn't mind the conversion to metric though.

[epzik8]

We'll use their signs if they get off the metric system.

Correct

[JoePCool14]

I'm good with the U.S. being different. Not everything needs to be 100% standardized world-wide. I actually think the U.S. is superior when it comes to warning signage and guide signage. I'm not going to cite any surveys or anything, this is just a casual forum post after all, but I think using yellow diamonds as opposed to red and white circles is just better. It makes them stand out more. And the use of symbols can get ridiculous.

Also, metric system sounds great, but we've been using customary forever, so let's just stick with that.

[bwana39]

We'll use their signs if they get off the metric system.

It is hard to believe how many people YOUNGER than me despise the SI so much. It is easier. Easier to do the math. Easier to interact with products and services internationally. Easier in every way except the perception of measurement to those who do not use it.

Our automobiles are almost exclusively built in metric units. Science is almost all in metric units. Even booze and weed is sold in metric units.

We fight our wars in metric units.

I figure the statement I replied ot is tongue in cheek, but I really do not want to convert the world to imperial measures.

[SP Cook]

Road signs.  This is a continent wide system, with small variations.  A continent is large enough to have its own system.  Sure, there are a few improvements that the MUTCD could use, what couldn't, but that is a thread for another day. 

Metric.  Metric is, I suppose, "easier"  if you are bad at math.  And?  The various units have no relationship to humankind.  Traditional units are based on how much of a quantity was reasonable in a given context and thus much more natural. 

[SkyPesos]

Doesn't the Vienna convention have the yellow diamond we use as an option for warning signs along with their red border triangle? I remember seeing a lot of places using a hybrid of those, along with the red border circle speed limit and blue circle w/ white down arrow "keep right"  signs.

[hotdogPi]

Traditional units are based on how much of a quantity was reasonable in a given context and thus much more natural.

A meter is approximately reach distance.

Degrees Celsius are spaced so that one degree is about the smallest noticeable difference. For example, in Fahrenheit, we would say that a person prefers room temperature at 68°, 70°, or 72°, but a 1° difference is too small; these numbers would be about 1° apart in Celsius. Freezing is also a much more natural zero point.

I wouldn't say they're any less natural than our current system.

[J N Winkler]

My answer is No.  This question is a bit like QWERTY versus Dvorak, railroad gauge standardization, and so on--the benefits do not justify the switching costs.

*  The US has been using symbol signs in contexts where they are genuinely practical since the early 1970's.

*  There are many situations where the Vienna convention does not provide a logical signing strategy, so adherents have to improvise their own.  Nationally specific solutions are generally no less word-heavy or difficult for foreigners to understand than the US signs that attract complaints (e.g., lane drop signs on freeways being understood to have the meaning "No re-entry possible at this exit" rather than "The current lane drops at the next interchange").

*  There is actually very little uniformity among Vienna adherents in guide/directional signing.  Some, like the UK and France, have three-color systems, while others, like Germany and Switzerland, have two-color systems.  The same color often has different meanings in different countries, such as blue in the UK and green in Sweden for motorways.  Countries that agree broadly on the meanings of colors for high-type roads often disagree on how to color advance signs for exiting traffic.  Some countries use offbeat color combinations, such as red on white for national roads in Denmark to match the flag colors.  And to add to the fun, countries like Spain are in the middle of messy transitions from three-color to two-color systems and from one system for using typefaces on signs to another.

It sounds like a lot, but I had to memorize them when I was stationed in Spain back in the 80s so I could drive my car. I don't recall anyone not passing the test, so it's not like it would be an impediment to driving and those growing up with the new signs would already know most of the meanings by the time they got their licenses.

Spain in the 1980's was a lot simpler than it is now, simply because the Franco regime tended to defer infrastructure investment (such as roads) that was seen as supporting a consumer economy; industrial production and forms of economic activity (such as tourism) that brought in hard currency from abroad were favored instead.  Now Spain has one of the biggest motorway networks in Europe, and the signing has become chaotic simply because old signs have been left standing as radical changes have been made to the system.

In 1986 Spain had white on blue for autopista signs and blue on white for autovía signs; in 1992 autovía signs were changed to white on blue, and white on green was introduced for vías rápidas; in 2001 white on green was eliminated (but some subnational jurisdictions continued using it anyway); a few years ago Autopista (the Series E Modified-like typeface, introduced in 1992 for use on high-type roads) was largely eliminated in favor of Carretera Convencional (but various agencies and their consultants still use Autopista anyway); etc.

[Scott5114]

I generally think the MUTCD approach is superior in terms of warning and guide signage.

The problem with using the equilateral triangle for warning signs is that the blank is half the area of the diamond, so the symbols themselves have to be correspondingly smaller. Making the full sign face yellow makes it more noticeable than a white sign with just a little bit of red piping around the edges. If there's any room for improvement on the North American side, it could easily be achieved by appropriating a few Vienna Convention symbols and slapping them onto a yellow diamond.

The guide sign approach in North America with graphical shields is, in my opinion, far superior to the alphanumeric system used in most European countries. The only real advantage that the European system has is that the hierarchy of road classifications is more clear. However, that's not really relevant in the US, because you really have only two practical classifications, Interstates and everything else. Once you learn to identify the Interstate and US route shields, anything left is generally some flavor of state route. (Or county route, but those are likewise pretty standard between the states and says the word COUNTY on it.) And in countries like Ukraine that don't use a strict A-B-C-M type setup, it's not really any more clear how the hierarchy works than it is using arbitrary graphical symbols.

The one thing that the Vienna Convention seems to do better is regulatory signage. The white rectangle blank is fine, but our regulatory signage is usually pretty wordy and sometimes kind of pointless. (Gee, this thing on the end of the mastarm with the arrow lenses is a left turn signal? you don't say?) Taking a few pages out of the Vienna Convention to streamline it would be a welcome change.

Metric.  Metric is, I suppose, "easier"  if you are bad at math.  And?  The various units have no relationship to humankind.  Traditional units are based on how much of a quantity was reasonable in a given context and thus much more natural. 

Because the one thing that makes me feel the most human is counting out 5,280 of something, which is something I am naturally good at as a human.

[hotdogPi]

Because the one thing that makes me feel the most human is counting out 5,280 of something, which is something I am naturally good at as a human.

I can somewhat see the other side here – the traditional system includes furlongs, and a furlong is about the maximum distance where you can get someone else's attention out in the open, whether by sight or by voice (although this is probably a coincidence).

This is about 100 human heights, though (especially since the above is a very rough estimate)...

[Scott5114]

Because the one thing that makes me feel the most human is counting out 5,280 of something, which is something I am naturally good at as a human.

I can somewhat see the other side here – the traditional system includes furlongs, and a furlong is about the maximum distance where you can get someone else's attention out in the open, whether by sight or by voice (although this is probably a coincidence).

This is about 100 human heights, though (especially since the above is a very rough estimate)...

I mean, I don't know about you, but when I'm in a car, I don't generally estimate distances in my head by "gee, this is so many times the distance I can get someone else's attention." And I used to actually use furlongs on a daily basis at work.

I don't really think we need to change distance signage on roads, because many of our cities are built on a mile grid so it's just more convenient to keep using miles for legacy purposes. But when I'm measuring something at home I am loathe to use the inch side of the ruler, because it's a lot more convenient to deal with 14¼ of something than 9/16 of something. (There isn't even a 9/16 character in Unicode, so I can't even type one of my fancy fractions, dang it!) And I could probably round that off to an integer value of 14 mm and be fine for most practical applications, whereas inches are so large that you need to go to three decimal places to achieve the equivalent level of precision.

[kphoger]

Doesn't the Vienna convention have the yellow diamond we use as an option for warning signs along with their red border triangle? I remember seeing a lot of places using a hybrid of those, along with the red border circle speed limit and blue circle w/ white down arrow "keep right"  signs.

You don't have to go very far.  Mexico uses a mix of red border circle signs and yellow diamonds.

Because the one thing that makes me feel the most human is counting out 5,280 of something, which is something I am naturally good at as a human.

I don't know about you, but when I'm in a car, I don't generally estimate distances in my head by "gee, this is so many times the distance I can get someone else's attention."

Neither 5280 feet nor 1760 yards nor 1000 meters has any real-world significance to me.  I never count a thousand meters any more than you count 5280 of it.  I might as well tell you that there are fewer inches in a mile than there are millimeters in a kilometer:  it's meaningless to any real-world application.

Yes, inches are too big to be useful for... umm, for what?  Centimeters often get decimal places anyway.  Grams are too big to measure body weight, but so what?

Personally, I find the divisibility of the US Customary units more handy than the metric system.  Units based on multiples of 12 can be easy divided in half, in thirds, or in fourths.  Units based on multiples of 10 can easily be divided in half but not much else.

[Scott5114]

Yes, inches are too big to be useful for... umm, for what?  Centimeters often get decimal places anyway.  Grams are too big to measure body weight, but so what?

Personally, I find the divisibility of the US Customary units more handy than the metric system.  Units based on multiples of 12 can be easy divided in half, in thirds, or in fourths.  Units based on multiples of 10 can easily be divided in half but not much else.

Anything I would use inches to measure, really. I'm just gonna grab this six-sided die that's within arm's reach of me and measure it. Now, as I pick it up, I can tell it's less than an inch wide. I'm getting the ruler out. We'll do inches first. Okay, it's bigger than half an inch, but less than three-quarters of an inch. In fact, it's halfway between the two.

Now, I went to school in Washington, Oklahoma, and probably have at least two undiagnosed mental illnesses, so I suck at math and none of this comes as automatic to me. No measuring implement I've ever owned has made any distinction between /2s, /4s, /8s, and /16s in any way other than the length of the lines, and my brain gets mixed up trying to figure out which one is which. If they were different colors or something, I'd be able to tell more quickly.

I have to stop and think what fraction is halfway between ½" and ¾". So that's...what, ⅝"? Okay. That's 0.625". (I know this solely because of the post-it note I have next to the computer, because the conversion between eights and sixteenths and their decimal forms has never become instinctual for me the way fourths and halves has.) So I have to have three decimal places to express that.

Flipping the ruler around and doing cm/mm now. It's 15 mm. I can tell because it's five lines to the right of the 1 cm mark. Simple, straightforward, no decimals or fractions.

[mgk920]

We'll just design and build he new bridge in Smoots.



Mike

[skluth]

Personally, I find the divisibility of the US Customary units more handy than the metric system.  Units based on multiples of 12 can be easy divided in half, in thirds, or in fourths.  Units based on multiples of 10 can easily be divided in half but not much else.

That's the answer. We change all our measurements to hexadecimal. Can't easily do thirds, but it divides by 2 and 4 easily enough and it would make converting numbers for computers so-o-o-o-o much easier. It's already in place with liquid measurements; 2 cups in 1 pint, 2 pints in a quart, 4 quarts in a gallon.

[jt4]

It seems like most of the symbols are similar enough that if we just pared back the words on the sign, we would be most of the way to having Vienna-compliant signs. The Vienna convention allows *both* the red bordered triangles and the yellow diamonds.

[Scott5114]

It's already in place with liquid measurements; 2 cups in 1 pint, 2 pints in a quart, 4 quarts in a gallon.

And I have to look those damn things up every time I need to do something with those too.

That's the real problem–I deal with units of measure so infrequently I never remember which hairbrained numbering scheme which units follow!

[kphoger]

Flipping the ruler around and doing cm/mm now. It's 15 mm. I can tell because it's five lines to the right of the 1 cm mark. Simple, straightforward, no decimals or fractions.

You can count how many millimeters on a ruler?  Good grief, I can't.  They're too close together.  Millimeters are too small to be useful, and you've already proven that centimeters are no better than inches.

Personally, I find the divisibility of the US Customary units more handy than the metric system.  Units based on multiples of 12 can be easy divided in half, in thirds, or in fourths.  Units based on multiples of 10 can easily be divided in half but not much else.

That's the answer. We change all our measurements to hexadecimal. Can't easily do thirds, but it divides by 2 and 4 easily enough and it would make converting numbers for computers so-o-o-o-o much easier. It's already in place with liquid measurements; 2 cups in 1 pint, 2 pints in a quart, 4 quarts in a gallon.

But thirds are useful.  It's one thing I like about having clocks based on the number 12 (5 minutes is 1/12 of an hour, 20 minutes is 1/3 of an hour, 8 hours is 1/3 of a day).  I wish liquid measurements were based on twelves instead of simple powers of two.  For example, if the recipe says 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and we're tripling the recipe, it's ridiculous that the answer is 3/16 of a cup.

It's already in place with liquid measurements; 2 cups in 1 pint, 2 pints in a quart, 4 quarts in a gallon.

And I have to look those damn things up every time I need to do something with those too.

That's the real problem–I deal with units of measure so infrequently I never remember which hairbrained numbering scheme which units follow!

I don't use pints and quarts, so I always forget those too.  What I use all the time, however, are teaspoons and tablespoons and measuring cups in the kitchen.

1 cup = 2 half-cups
1 half-cup = 2 quarter-cups
1 quarter-cup = 2 tablespoons
1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons

Oh, hey, look, base twelve again!  1 quarter-cup = 12 teaspoons.  I guess it's in there after all...

[kalvado]

Flipping the ruler around and doing cm/mm now. It's 15 mm. I can tell because it's five lines to the right of the 1 cm mark. Simple, straightforward, no decimals or fractions.

You can count how many millimeters on a ruler?  Good grief, I can't.  They're too close together.  Millimeters are too small to be useful, and you've already proven that centimeters are no better than inches.

Personally, I find the divisibility of the US Customary units more handy than the metric system.  Units based on multiples of 12 can be easy divided in half, in thirds, or in fourths.  Units based on multiples of 10 can easily be divided in half but not much else.

That's the answer. We change all our measurements to hexadecimal. Can't easily do thirds, but it divides by 2 and 4 easily enough and it would make converting numbers for computers so-o-o-o-o much easier. It's already in place with liquid measurements; 2 cups in 1 pint, 2 pints in a quart, 4 quarts in a gallon.

But thirds are useful.  It's one thing I like about having clocks based on the number 12 (5 minutes is 1/12 of an hour, 20 minutes is 1/3 of an hour, 8 hours is 1/3 of a day).  I wish liquid measurements were based on twelves instead of simple powers of two.  For example, if the recipe says 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and we're tripling the recipe, it's ridiculous that the answer is 3/16 of a cup.

It's already in place with liquid measurements; 2 cups in 1 pint, 2 pints in a quart, 4 quarts in a gallon.

And I have to look those damn things up every time I need to do something with those too.

That's the real problem–I deal with units of measure so infrequently I never remember which hairbrained numbering scheme which units follow!

I don't use pints and quarts, so I always forget those too.  What I use all the time, however, are teaspoons and tablespoons and measuring cups in the kitchen.

1 cup = 2 half-cups
1 half-cup = 2 quarter-cups
1 quarter-cup = 2 tablespoons
1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons

Oh, hey, look, base twelve again!  1 quarter-cup = 12 teaspoons.  I guess it's in there after all...

1 tablespoon x3 is 3 tablespoons....  Oh, you don't have to thank so hard!
And one cup is 250 ml, one tablespoon is 15 ml; and 1 cup = 16 tablespoons is good enough for a government job.

Now the real one: how many tablespoons of sugar you need to add to 1 cup of hot water to get 20% hummingbird syrup?

[kalvado]

It seems like most of the symbols are similar enough that if we just pared back the words on the sign, we would be most of the way to having Vienna-compliant signs. The Vienna convention allows *both* the red bordered triangles and the yellow diamonds.

Topic of MUTCD vs Vienna convention comes up regularly on this forum. So far my take-home message is that Vienna convention assumes that drivers are specially trained, but may be unable to read local language (foreigners or illiterate); while MUTCD assumes literacy in English local language but no special sign recognition classes. MUTCD approach mostly work within North America (and Quebec can be a pain); while local language may be a challenge when you can cross a few countries during a weekend trip.

[seicer]

An interesting tidbit I picked up from this video is that we tested out signs noted in the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals in the United States, and the public was pretty adamant on sticking with what was in the MUTCD.