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Are you asking us to replace all our present signs with your format? Absolutely not. Do not replace any serviceable sign, new or old. Spend your money instead on putting up missing signs, using a Lifesaver format. Use the new format when replacing faded or damaged signs. It will take many years for all signs to become Lifesavers, but the important thing is to adopt and start using such a standard now. We like our present design. Understandable, as many councils have adopted new street name blade designs in recent years, often to match suburb and municipality welcome signs. They can be modified to become Lifesavers. We don’t need more signs in our area. Of course you don’t! You don’t even need the ones already there. Street name signs help visitors. You need them in other people’s areas. They need them in yours. Because you don't need the signs to navigate your own area doesn't mean you don't benefit from them. Lifesaver signs will help your dinner guests, appliance repairmen and delivery people find you quickly. If your visitors are the emergency services, these signs may indeed save your life. We have too many signs already. They cause visual pollution. Often true of billboards. But street name signs, like other traffic control signs, are essential. Most street name signs are not even noticed except by those looking for them. Billboards are like display ads, designed to attract the driver’s attention. Street name blades are like the classifieds—no bells and whistles, just there when you need them. Drivers don’t need reminding what street they’re on at every intersection. Right, as long as they know what street they’re on in the first place. But if they enter it from a side street where it isn’t named, they can remain uninformed for blocks and blocks. Lost drivers should only have to go to the nearest corner to establish their location in their street directories, not roam the streets looking for elusive signs. Searching for signs, getting more and more lost, stresses even patient drivers. Signing the major street at every intersection is overkill. Some intersections are only metres apart. That's why the recommendation says "virtually every intersection". Staggered T junctions sometime result in blocks so short you can see the next intersection's sign close by. Maintenance crews will judge each situation sensibly. Councils can’t afford to put up all those missing signs. Perhaps not all at once, but they can budget enough over a period of years to gradually fill in the gaps. See Costs. Why all the fuss about positioning of signs? Drivers must first locate signs before they can read them. Some of the placements suggested in the Australian Standard, particularly at T junctions, actually work against the driver. See points 3 and 4 of Lifesaver Plan. Why should councils provide kerb numbers? Because that’s the only way 100% of properties will get numbered. When they do, having to search all over gardens and footpaths trying to "pick up a number" will be history. In areas without kerb and guttering, numbers can go on concrete abutments flanking the driveway or the driveway itself. In commercial districts where kerbside parking would hide the numbers, shopkeepers can be encouraged to put their numbers on the face of their awnings alongside their business name.
Page created 28 September, 2001. Last updated
19 August, 2003 04:39:34 +1000
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