A Sign That Something’s Unclear: Readers Suggest Better Highway Warnings
We seem to have struck a nerve. Or, as Caltrans might paint it on the pavement, Nerve a Struck Have to Seem We.
Many readers have written or called to agree with my recent complaints about road signs (such as Caltrans’ propensity for backwards sentences). Others sent in gripes I had not even thought of. Then there were the constructive types who came up with some creative solutions.
But there’s a heckler in every crowd, so let’s start with ours:
“You must have been desperate for something to write about. When we came to this area in September of ‘88, we were really pleased with how well planned signs and turns were,” an unsigned letter said. “The green and white is just fine--at least you can spot the sign in time to read it. If you want to experience something bad, try the (Schuylkill Expressway) in Philadelphia or New Jersey’s traffic circles.”
Mike McSunas of Corona del Mar wrote that his “biggest pet peeve” is a Caltrans misspelling. “Coming southbound on I-5 right before the Grapevine (north of L.A.), there are two or three signs that say ‘Busses only,’ with the word buses spelled incorrectly! Can’t Caltrans at least look a word up in the dictionary if they are unsure how to spell it? I am embarrassed to have out-of-staters see these signs; they probably laugh at our stupidity.”
Or perhaps they take the signs literally and assume that the lane is reserved for drivers indulging in multiple kisses.
But wait, there’s more. McSunas is also “somewhat irked” by the signs for the Corona del Mar Freeway, because they say “Corona Del Mar” with a big D , instead of “Corona del Mar” with a little d .
“Maybe I’m letting little things bother me,” he concluded, “But what is life without a few complaints?”
Gary F. Sallee of Yorba Linda wrote to address three of my complaints.
My first gripe was the guessing game drivers have to play whenever they approach a freeway on-ramp and don’t know which side they need to be on to go in which direction.
“How about a sign shape that tells which lane you are supposed to be in?” Sallee suggested.
He drew two options, including an old-fashioned hand with a pointing finger (with the extended digit pointing left or right, depending on which side the ramp will be on), and a more conventionally shaped sign with rounded corners and a row of arrows on the ramp side.
Of the two, I prefer the hand; it adds a humanizing touch. An advantage with either choice is that they do not actually use the words left and right, which is helpful for drivers who always need a moment to recall which is which. And for those of us behind them.
Sallee disagreed with my suggestion that we refer to our freeways by numbers instead of by names. “I’m sorry, but I LIKE having both names and numbers,” he said. “The names are good for us old-timers who watched the freeways being built and can’t remember if the Newport Freeway and the Riverside Freeway are the 97 and the 51, or something.
“A route from Newport Beach to Pomona would be: Go north on the Newport Freeway (old Newport Boulevard--used to be three lanes, good riddance), go west (north) on the Santa Ana Freeway (used to be Anaheim Telegraph Road), go north on the Orange Freeway (was Placentia Avenue), go east (north) on the Pomona Freeway (was Brea Canyon Road) to Garey Avenue. I could no way tell you the numbers of those freeways.”
Somehow I don’t think I’ll be calling this guy to ask for directions. A history lesson, maybe.
Sallee also had a point to make about our green-and-white freeway signs, which ophthalmologist Clifford Terry of Fullerton said were not ideal for contrast and readability.
“In the 1950s there was a big controversy when all of the freeway signs were converted from black-on-white to white-on-green. This was supposed to improve readability. Were they wrong? Have our eyes changed? Or have all those green signs just faded because of smog oxidation?
“The good thing about the green sign for a freeway entrance is that all other signs are different colors,” he said. “This makes the green freeway entrance sign recognizable from a much greater distance.”
Good point.
Jill Amadio of Newport Beach wrote to agree with my complaint about compass points; i.e., why don’t they just say North or South instead of San Diego or Riverside ?
“So how about my office address?” Amadio added. “I am on WEST Coast Highway, which is, actually, the Pacific Coast Highway” north of Newport Beach. As the exact same road proceeds past Amadio southeast, it becomes East Coast Highway, then Coast Highway through Laguna Beach and Dana Point, then North El Camino Real from the San Clemente line to Avenida del Mar, then South El Camino Real to its union with Interstate 5. It would be too easy to call the whole works Highway 1, as folks do in Northern California.”
Pat Bryant of Garden Grove has a complaint about car-pool (diamond) lanes. She does not mind that they exist, as many readers do. Her problem is with the signs referring to them.
“When entering a freeway on-ramp where there is a diamond lane,” she said, “a sign will say something like, ‘Car pool (2 or more persons) lane use diamond lane. Motorcycles OK . . . when metered.” That’s not quite how the wording goes, thank goodness, but you get the idea.
“Now, for one thing, the diamond lane is not consistently on the LEFT or the RIGHT. . . . It varies throughout the state. Also, you do not know until you are ALREADY IN the ramp itself whether it is metered. Sometimes it’s so curvy you can’t tell if lights are operating until you’re halfway through it, with no chance for safe lane-changing. Also, you often have to quickly determine whether you’re between 6 and 9 a.m. or whatever the time frame designated.”
When Bryant drives a motorcycle, she is eligible for the “motorcycles OK” designation.
“By the time all of this computes together, I can be on the freeway, or pulled over getting a fat ticket for being in the wrong lane,” she said.
Bryant suggested that all of the rules “should be made apparent through signs or signals placed IN ADVANCE OF entering the on-ramp. And YES, I have seen people jerk and veer all over the place trying to get themselves in the correct lane, with many near-misses.
“I wonder how many accidents may have happened while someone was going up the on-ramp computing ‘What time is it/What am I driving right now/Am I alone/Is the meter on or off/And which side will be the diamond/Which side the regular lane???????
“FOR SAFETY’S SAKE, will they PLEASE smooth out this potential accident-causing situation!!!!!!!”
Last we have Willard Tjossem of Laguna Hills.
“Your savvy article . . . reminded me of a problem, and a potential solution, that has been on my mind for several years,” he said.
The problem: “No matter what contrasting colors are used on signs, they are all useless when driving toward a bright sky, such as east in the morning or west in the afternoon. All that can be seen then is a black silhouette.
“Solution: Let the sun shine through. If holes were placed where reflector buttons are now used, the signs would be readable in the above conditions. Holes being cheaper than reflectors, we could have many more of them for equal costs. . . .
“Enclosed is a simple but effective illustration of the idea,” he said.
What Tjossem enclosed was a photo of an Interstate 5 sign, in which he carefully poked pinholes in the numeral 5.
He’s right, it works.
