Peter Beale writes:
On a recent trip it struck me that in the USA there is far more actual
reading than here...

Quite true. This comes from being a country with one dominant language
and not having signs harmonized with other countries with other languages.

Canadian signage is mostly like the US, but with greater use of symbols.

- although they do use arrows and other symbols,
there is much of "LEFT TURNS MUST TURN LEFT",

Would you believe "LEFT LANE MUST TURN LEFT"?

"WRONG WAY", "RIGHT HAND LANE ENDS IN 100 FEET" and the like. Also
that they tend to use "feet" rather than "yards" for horizontal
distances ...

Well, sure. Yards are for football. In real life people use feet
(unless they're Canadian and use metric).

Ob London Transport: for the first-time North American visitor to London,
the most amusing commonly seen sign is probably "WAY OUT".
--
Mark Brader "It is considered a sign of great {winnitude}
Toronto when your Obs are more interesting than other
people's whole postings." --Eric Raymond

My text in this article is in the public domain.

On Wed, 09 Jun 2004 12:35:49 -0000, Mark Brader wrote:

Ob London Transport: for the first-time North American visitor to London,
the most amusing commonly seen sign is probably "WAY OUT".

Friend sent me a pic of a sign on an American beach that read

"Dont be a tosser - take your litter with you"

Totally innocent if you are a Yank, priceless if you are British

--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/

In article , (Mark Brader) wrote:

Ob London Transport: for the first-time North American visitor to
London,
the most amusing commonly seen sign is probably "WAY OUT".

I saw a sign while in the States (not a highway one) which read
"NO TRESPASSING WITHOUT PERMISSION". I am not sure where
one obtains permits to trespass.

--
Peter Beale

Peter Beale wrote:
In article , (Mark
Brader) wrote:

Ob London Transport: for the first-time North American visitor to
London,
the most amusing commonly seen sign is probably "WAY OUT".

I saw a sign while in the States (not a highway one) which read
"NO TRESPASSING WITHOUT PERMISSION". I am not sure where
one obtains permits to trespass.

You can't. Trespass implies lack of permission.

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

In article , (Richard J.) wrote:

I saw a sign while in the States (not a highway one) which read
"NO TRESPASSING WITHOUT PERMISSION". I am not sure where
one obtains permits to trespass.

You can't. Trespass implies lack of permission.

Yes, I did realize that - my comment was an attempt at humour.

--
Peter Beale

(Peter Beale) wrote the following in:
o.uk

In article ,
(Terry Harper) wrote:

Do the USAns have filter arrows, or is it a Europe-specific
thing ?

Not usually, but they often have arrows above the lanes which are
supposed to go that way.

On a recent trip it struck me that in the USA there is far more
actual reading than here - although they do use arrows and other
symbols, there is much of "LEFT TURNS MUST TURN LEFT", "WRONG
WAY", "RIGHT HAND LANE ENDS IN 100 FEET" and the like. Also that
they tend to use "feet" rather than "yards" for horizontal
distances (we have "feet" for vertical, though).

Even the speed limit signs say "SPEED LIMIT 30" or whatever, instead of
just a 30 in a red circle.

--
message by Robin May. Inimitable, but would you want to anyway?
"GIVE IN! IT'S TIME TO GO!" - The NHS offers a high standard of care.

http://robinmay.fotopic.net
Spelling lesson: then and than are different words.

gs wrote the following in:
news
On Wed, 09 Jun 2004 12:35:49 -0000, Mark Brader
wrote:

Ob London Transport: for the first-time North American visitor to
London, the most amusing commonly seen sign is probably "WAY
OUT".

Friend sent me a pic of a sign on an American beach that read

"Dont be a tosser - take your litter with you"

Totally innocent if you are a Yank, priceless if you are British

I must see that picture!

--
message by Robin May. Inimitable, but would you want to anyway?
"GIVE IN! IT'S TIME TO GO!" - The NHS offers a high standard of care.

http://robinmay.fotopic.net
Spelling lesson: then and than are different words.

(Richard M Willis) wrote in
m:

The presence of this superfluous combination of signals causes far
too many
people to think that they must stop UNLESS they have a filter, i.e.
that
the solid green applies only to movements that don't have a filter
even
if that filter is currently dark.

As I understand it, you DO have to stop if the filter isn't showing in
one situation: if the filter light is to the immediate left or right of
the main light, rather than underneath it.

I was led to believe that the law regarding filter arrows is thus:

* If the filter arrow is below the main green light, then if the main
light is illuminated but the filter isn't, you may proceed across the
stop line and wait to turn when it is safe to do so. Once the filter
arrow illuminates you can assume it IS safe to do so as the oncoming
traffic will now be on a red.

* If the filter arrow is beside the main green light, then if the main
light is illuminated but the filter isn't, you must not cross the stop
line, even if it is safe to turn. You must wait for the filter to
illuminate before you can even begin to make the turn.

Interestingly enough I can't find anything in the Highway Code to back
up this belief, despite the fact that a few years back a friend failed
his car test and the examiner told him that one of the faults was to
edge forward at a beside-the-main-light filter.

--
Iain | PGP mail preferred: pubkey @ www.deepsea.f9.co.uk/misc/iain.asc
($=,$,)=split m$"13/$,qq;13"13/tl\.rnh r HITtahkPctacriAneeeusaoJ;;
for(@==sort@$=split m,,,$,){$..=$$[$=];$$=$=[$=];$@=1;$@++while$=[--$=
]eq$$&&$==$?;$==$?;for(@$){$@--if$$ eq$_;;last if!$@;$=++}}print$..$/

Iain wrote:
(Richard M Willis) wrote in
m:

The presence of this superfluous combination of signals causes far
too many people to think that they must stop UNLESS they have a
filter, i.e. that the solid green applies only to movements that
don't have a filter even if that filter is currently dark.

As I understand it, you DO have to stop if the filter isn't showing
in one situation: if the filter light is to the immediate left or
right of the main light, rather than underneath it.

There is no such rule (see below).

I was led to believe that the law regarding filter arrows is thus:

* If the filter arrow is below the main green light, then if the
main light is illuminated but the filter isn't, you may proceed
across the stop line and wait to turn when it is safe to do so.
Once the filter arrow illuminates you can assume it IS safe to do
so as the oncoming traffic will now be on a red.

Correct.

* If the filter arrow is beside the main green light, then if the
main light is illuminated but the filter isn't, you must not cross
the stop line, even if it is safe to turn. You must wait for the
filter to illuminate before you can even begin to make the turn.

If the traffic light looks like this:

Red
Amber
Green Green-arrow

then you are free to move if the solid green is lit. It would be absurd
to expect drivers to notice the position of a light which is not lit,
especially at night.

Interestingly enough I can't find anything in the Highway Code to
back up this belief, despite the fact that a few years back a
friend failed his car test and the examiner told him that one of
the faults was to edge forward at a beside-the-main-light filter.

That was probably a junction where there is a separate complete traffic
signal controlling turning traffic. In other words, you have something
like this:

Red Red
Amber Amber
Green Green-arrow

In that case, the two clusters control different lanes. Perhaps your
friend was waiting in the right-hand lane, and moved forward when the
left lane's green was lit, thus passing a red light for his lane. Do
you know which junction it was?

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

Richard J.:
That was probably a junction where there is a separate complete traffic
signal controlling turning traffic. In other words, you have something
like this:

Red Red
Amber Amber
Green Green-arrow

Just by the way, the analogous layout in *some* jurisdictions in
North America would use arrows for all three lights on the left-turn
signal.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | There is no step function between "safe" and "unsafe".
| -- Jeff Janes