ROSALIND HOBBS

Rosalind Hobbs

University of Tulsa

December 2021

Road signs and signals: tackling the incomprehensibility of a system feigning universality

Introduction

          Since 1968, a standardized system for road signs and signals has been implemented across countries worldwide. This is done with the purpose of creating a more fluid flow of people domestically and internationally. However, when the system is analyzed more closely, the ambiguities of meaning become apparent. The comprehensibility of road signs and signals does not exist to the degree that it needs to in order to ensure the safety of drivers. This research paper aims to deconstruct the design of road signs and signals to shed light on the errors of understanding among both domestic and foreign drivers in a given area through the following process: illustrating a brief history on the standardization of road signs and signals, visually deconstructing the informational categorization and pictographic nature of signage, reviewing global case studies to support the conclusions of the semiotic analysis, and finally offering and critiquing proposed solutions. This research is significant because road signs and signals are tasked with increasing the safety of drivers and the efficacy of traffic infrastructures among growing populations. By analyzing the ways in which the current system is failing, plans towards creating a safer flow of vehicular transportation within cities and across borders can be initiated.

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Part I: Components and origins of road signs and signals

A brief history

          Before a deeper semiotic analysis is illustrated, it is necessary to understand the history of road signs and signals and how it came to be a standardized system. In 1949, during a conference in Geneva, the United Nations declared the Protocol which provided a road system that “relied almost wholly on symbols without words . . . based on European designs” (Zuniga, 1). The Protocol went on to be the most widespread system at the time and arrived as a response to the growing populations and number of drivers on the roads in developed countries. Alternate systems sprouted from other areas including The United States (Zuniga, 1). As these systems developed, they began to be adopted around the world and spread in a migratory fashion that, in some areas, reflected post-colonial remnants of influence. For example, variations of the Old British road sign and signal system could be found in parts of eastern and southern Africa (Zuniga, 2). As these systems had time to be integrated and practiced, amendments became needed. 

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          The United Nation thus convened the Vienna Conference on Road Signs and Signals in 1968 where it was determined a standardized system on the international level was necessary (Zuniga, 2). If a standardization of road signs and signals were in place, the flow of people, material things, and information would be eased with increased efficiency and safety. To achieve this, the following basic requirement was decided on: road signs and signals “must rely on symbols rather than on written messages” to alleviate language barriers (Zuniga, 2). Ideally, restrictions, warnings, and instructions would be simplified into iconic visuals that would be implemented internationally, with as few differences as possible, to allow any driver from any country to recognize and respond appropriately. This solution eased vehicular travel across borders and boundaries, specifically in developed countries, by tackling the restraints language places on users from various backgrounds. However, after 50 years of being in practice, the standardized system that was designed during the Vienna Convention of 1968 does not provide the boundless world it promised. This research aims to analyze specifically the system set in place during this convention and the ways in which it strays greatly from its initial goal. 

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The design

          Road signs and signals involve the transmittance of categorical information through a communication process involving dynamic elements mediated by visuals including color, shape, and icon. Three categories of road signs exist in a transportation infrastructure: (1) warning signs: signifying a potential danger to drivers, (2) regulatory signs: expressing traffic laws including prohibitions, restrictions, and mandates, (3) guide and informative signs: detailing direction, place identification, and other useful information for drivers (Zuniga). Each category serves to increase the efficacy and order of road systems and driver populations. Road signs allow drivers to know their restrictions, how to decrease the chances of vehicular accidents with others or nearby dangers, and the best ways to get where they need to go. 

 

          The transmittance of such information, mediated by signs and signals, involves: (1) sender: the authoritative body responsible for creating the message, (2) user: the driver (3) message: the information requiring the transmittance such as “do not enter,” “speed limit of 65 mph,” or “airport this way,” (4) codex: the connection between the message and graphic signage, (5) contact: the user’s ability to receive the message, (6) context: the location of the road sign or signal and other influential variables such as weather or time of day (Viganò and Rovida, 4). Each of these elements are necessary for a successful transmittance of information between the authoritative body and the driver.

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          To develop the design of a traffic sign or signal, color and shape is applied first to categorize the information. Regulatory signs are red and are often incased in a circular shape with a diagonal line through it to suggest prohibition of an action (figure 1.1). Warning signs are yellow and typically shaped as a diamond or inverted pyramid and alert potential dangers (figure 1.2). Informative signs are often designed using arrows and the color green or white (figure 1.3). By using this categorization, information can be more easily interpreted by drivers and can allow for the translation of urgency. If a driver sees the bright yellow inverted pyramid, because many warning signs have these characteristics, the sign with be registered as a warning and will receive greater attention than a green, instructional sign that only requires notice if the driver is seeking said instruction. 

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          After the category is characterized on a sign, the action or thing that must be considered within that category is illustrated using pictographic icons, or still graphic images that represent an idea or thing. In the case of restrictive signs, this may involve the action of parking, turning left, or making a U-turn. For warning signs, icons could represent falling rocks, hills, or construction. Instructional signs may have icons for hospital, airport, or gas station. Because this form of communication deals with large, mobile audiences, pictography provides the following advantages: (1) a driver can identify signs more easily from a distance, (2) images are “categorized faster,” (3) images have a better chance of maintain identifiability through harsh or damaging conditions, (4) images result in better memorization “due to their dual encoding” (Bazire and Tijus, 2). While this is useful and simple in theory, there are challenges in translating messages pictorially in this context.

 

          Both the reality of road signs and the pictographic idea itself are problematic in ensuring comprehensibility. Firstly, road signs are often still accompanied by words or text. In fact, in any area, there are numerous examples of graphical and text pairings on signs (figure 2.1). This eliminates the supposed universality of road sign pictography and suggests that the icon alone is not entirely sufficient in translating a message. This continues to create language barriers for which the entire system was made to eliminate. 

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          Secondly, while pictography does make the translation of information quicker and easier, it does not take into consideration the complexity of creating pictorial signs nor the potential cultural factors involved. For example, a large issue with pictography used for road signs is the difference between iconifying a static object versus an action or abstract concept (Bazire and Tijus, 2). It is easy is to illustrate the presence of a café as an informational sign by creating a graphical coffee mug, but to express the two-directional traffic traveling around a median is not a concrete, visual object and requires finding a new way to visually represent it (figure 3.1 and figure 3.2). This can create comprehension gaps in the translation process. 

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          Think about it this way, if a group of friends were playing Pictionary (a game where players guess a word that is depicted visually in drawing) and the drawer receives the word “brain,” a tangible object, they can simply draw a brain…a pink, bumpy, oval shape with squiggles. However, if the drawer pulls the word “thinking,” an action with no concrete manifestation, the process becomes more difficult (figure 4.1 and figure 4.2). They can use associated objects, like a brain, but to illustrate the action, visual elements must be created like, say, question marks or light bulbs. Furthermore, the process in which the other players would guess the word would go from concrete to abstract further emphasizing the static association of pictography. Illustrating “thinking” could start with a brain, then maybe a head around it, then a light bulb or question marks floating above. Players would begin guessing in a concrete manner that becomes progressively more abstract: “brain,” then “head,” then “thinking.” 

 

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          This same challenge can be seen in road signs and signals. It is easy to create and recognize static things, but an audience begins to lose touch with meanings that are more abstract. Visually expressing making a U-turn or going around other vehicles requires creative freedom. Some ideas are not even attempted to be expressed visually on signs; for example, “dead end” is often only written in text within the yellow diamond for warning.  With that being said, pictographic road signage may be more efficient for static and simple ideas like cafés, hospitals, or airports (most commonly informational signs) but less useful for the abstract. This is especially concerning when most of the more abstract or action-based messages are of the greatest importance that concern driver safety. 

         

          Not only do local drivers struggle with understanding signage for this reason, but foreign drivers struggle even more so because of the cultural embeddedness of pictography. To create a pictographic representation of something, especially the abstract concepts mentioned, requires creative imagination to connect ideas with imagery. Imagination is socially constructed and is a “progressive mastery of a linguistic system, as well as of various culturally mediated conceptual systems” (Zittoun et al., 4). For example, if you take two individuals, one native to North America and the other native to Eastern Africa, and ask both of them to imagine an animal, you will get different results because of the different animals they are exposed to in their daily lives. We construct our imagination through what we are familiar with and have been exposed to previously. Another more complex example is the interpretation of a cow among various cultures. A cow is a “source of nourishment” to westerners but an “object of veneration” to many people of India, thus a picture of a cow can symbolize two very different things across these two cultures (Cho, 3). Therefore, pictographic signs are subject to varying interpretations because of cultural differences that a universal road sign system cannot overcome. Signs across the globe attest to this: the three sign categories (restrictive, warning, and informational) tend to be universal and creates a semblance of understanding across cultures, however the actual iconography of the signs is not, this is where the issue lies.

 

          After deconstructed this process of communication and its implications, the initial purpose of this system to be standardized and universally understood is defeated. This communication process, no matter the format, can be subject to misinterpretation. In the case of road signs and signals, misinterpretation can lead to accidents, legal transgressions, and even injury or death. That being said, issues or delays in the comprehension of this communication are not acceptable. There is unequivocal research among both domestic and foreign driving populations that attests to the failure and incomprehensibility of this system.

 

Part II: Global case studies among domestic and foreign drivers

Foreign drivers

          The first example of road sign incomprehensibility among foreign drivers is through a case study conducted by Kasem Choocharukul and Kerkritt Sriroongvikrai in Thailand.  The researchers explored the how foreign drivers perceived local road signs and whether or not they’re achieving adequate understanding to drive safely in Thailand through a survey questionnaire distributed to 1,091 international tourists. The study found that “respondents could only comprehend road signs to some extent (10). The results revealed that younger respondents and individuals with experience in driving in foreign countries had an easier experience understanding road signs (8). With the rise of technology and the necessity for icons to navigate the digital world, digital literacy would be found in many younger generations and could be a potential cause for the propensity of this age group towards pictographic road signs. It was also found that Asian respondents received the lowest scores on the survey than other participants (8). This suggests that there is a cultural element to comprehensibility and would require further research to pinpoint the specific cause. This cultural embeddedness is explored more in other research.

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          Similar results are found in a comparative study on foreign drivers’ characteristics and traffic violations/accidents in Japan conducted by Kento Yoh, Tsutomu Okamoto, Hiroto Inoi, and Kenji Doi. With 20 million foreign tourists in 2015, this group of researchers analyzed extensive traffic data to reveal correlations between violations/accidents and cultural background (1). The study was quite conclusive: “Asian drivers tend to violate the rules related to priority, speed, and road space, while North and South Americans violate rules related to speed, and Southeast Asian drivers violate rules related to priority and comprehension of traffic rules and road signs; Asian drivers tend to cause crossing collision while on the other hand North and South Americans are prone to head-on collision and rear-end collision; Filipino and Vietnamese drivers represent the strongest tendency of failure to yield to pedestrians” (Yoh et. al). The abundance of results the study provides emphasizes the entanglement of cognition and social environment in the driving behaviors and responses, or lack thereof, to road signs and safety measures. Traffic rule violations, often communicated by road signs, are revealed to vary region by region (9). This is in part because while countries can utilize similar road sign systems (as a matter of fact, Japan employs a system inspired by U.S. standards), there are still often differences in rules and regulations that a foreign driver may be unfamiliar with. For example, Japan has a law on garage registration that most other countries do not have, thus, many foreign drivers violate the “no stopping or standing,” the study describes this as the difference between the “habitual behavior of foreigners and Japanese” (10). Both studies in Thailand and Japan prove the issues of comprehensibility among foreign drivers, but the latter dives deep into the cultural complications of this relationship between driver and road sign. These studies are especially fascinating as the road sign and signal systems are designed to ensure this ease of flow between different countries yet conclusively fail at this. 

 

          To express the degree to which this issue is consistent across the world, Kasem Choocharukul and Kerkritt Sriroongvikrai map out an expansive literature review in the preface to their research in Thailand. The text describes five studies of failed perception and comprehension of road signs including the following: (1) Turkey: out of 30 typical traffic signs, only 12 were identified correctly by 70% or more of 1,478 local driving participants (Kirmizioglu and Tuydes Yaman), (2) Israel: among 48 graduate students, only-text or text-supported signs were better comprehended (Shinar and Vogelzang), (3) Canada, Finland, Israel, and Poland: significant difference in comprehension level among specific sign messages, different countries, and driver population (Shinar et al.), (4) Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates: only 56% of 28 posted signs could be comprehended and correlated to education, gender, monthly income, and nationality of the driver, (5) Florida: out of 740 respondents, international drivers “performed below domestic drivers in understanding traffic signs, markings, and traffic signal indications” (Dissanayake and Lu). While this brief overview is quite monotonous, it provides testament to the consistency of road sign and signal incomprehensibility among not only foreign but domestic drivers as well. 

 

Domestic drivers

         A study conducted by a group of researchers at the Department of Mechanical Engineering in Ghana analyzes road traffic accident trends in the area and causing factors. Like the study in Japan, this research focused on available data rather than participatory surveying. The results conclusively claim that “over speeding, over loading, and disregard to road signs/regulations were ranked as the first-three causes of [road traffic accidents] in Ghana” (Nyamuame, 130). The data tables in the report provides insight on the significance of these accidents in Ghana with 130,895 traffic accident cases, 17,226 persons killed, and 114,024 injured between 2005 and 2015 (128). The prevalence of this issue spurs these in-depth studies on why this many accidents are happening. This particular research suggests the problem lies in driver’s behavior and indiscipline (131). While there are of course negligent drivers, this claim is an example of fundamental attribution error that is common in road traffic accident research. Holding the driver responsible for transportation failures “vastly overrates human factors [and] vastly underrates situation factors when trying to explain why events have occurred” (Green et al.). In this context, the research in Ghana overestimates the contribution of driver negligence and fails to consider the foundational problems in transportation communication. Nonetheless, this study is still valuable in that it reveals the extent to which road traffic accidents are an issue in Ghana and that the relationship between driver and road sign information is within the top three causes. This error in perception is more closely analyzed among domestic drivers in other studies.

For example, in Langsa, Indonesia, Bayos Erwana Syahroni from the Department of English Education at Samudra University conducted research on students’ interpretation of traffic signs in their city. 30 students ages 17-19 were presented with a display of 47 traffic signs pulled from one street, Jendral Ahmad Yani, in Langsa and asked the participants to interpret their meaning (19). The signs were chosen diversly including “no turning back,” “narrowing road,” “children in the area,” “crossroad right side,” and “lodging location.” The results showed that only 39% of signs were correctly identified by 20 students or more.

 

          What is most interesting about these results are the top five accurately identified signs by all 30 students. These signs include “no parking,” “no stopping,” “restaurant location,” “café location,” and “mosque location” (33). Reflecting on the visual analysis of road signs, this is a clear pattern here. The latter three signs pictographically represent static objects using a direct object to icon relationship. The restaurant becomes a set of utensils, the café becomes a coffee mug, and the mosque is depicted with a domed top and crescent and star. With no room for abstract translation, these signs would consistently be understood by the majority, and that is what is proven among these students. While the other two signs, “no parking” and “no stopping,” are not static objects, they simply use the first letter of the action, “P” for “parking and “S” for “stopping,” with a horizontal line across it. This here is not pictography but alphabetic abbreviation and is cognitively received linguistically rather than visually through images. 

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Part III: Looking forward with proposed solutions

         There are a variety of different solutions to road sign incomprehensibility that circulate among researchers, urban planners, and vehicle manufacturers that might not eliminate the issue entirely but deserves consideration in this research. Of course, there are some proposals that attempt to find a solution yet tend to answer the wrong problem. The “Proposed Method About the Design of Road Signs” by Roberto Viganò and Edoardo Rovida does excellent work identifying the poor understanding of road communication among drivers and specifically points out the issue of text-supported signs as the cause. The proposition here is to implement a system that applies an even greater degree of graphics to avoid text all together. While this would eliminate the issue of language barriers, it fails to respond to the cultural differences and interpretative complexities of pictographic road signs. With that being said, instituting such system would not prove to contribute much aid to the issue. 

         

          Another interesting proposal is to simply eliminate road signs and traffic signals all together. Experiments across continental Europe have been implementing what is called “shared spaces” that involves converting intersections littered with road signs to areas where cars, bikes, and people can travel freely in the same space without signage or signals (Haubursin). It’s quite curious how it works, and Poyton, United Kingdom has become the hotspot to observe the fascinating experiment. The village center underwent an entire elimination of traffic lights, road signs, and curbs (Vox). This system works because “the absence of separation will make everyone more cautious -- so commuters slow down, make eye contact, and negotiate” (99% invisible qtd. in Vox). This creates slow-speed continuous movement yielding saved time by both cars and pedestrians as they can flow freely through the intersection when an opportunity becomes available (Cassini). While many think the elimination of traffic lights would encourage driving faster, the opposite is true: the uncertainty at the junction created by the lack of signage and signals forces drivers to approach the space more carefully when they are unable to rely on a signal to give them the right of way (Cassini).  Many citizens have claimed the continuous-flow space feels calmer and safer, and data exists to support this as there were 17 accidents on this road within the three years prior to the removal of road signs and signals, and within six years of creating the shared space, only four accidents have occurred (Goodyear). Of course, it is important to note that Poyton is a small town, with only 14,000 inhabitants. This concept of a shared space most likely cannot function on a grand scale, however it provides interesting ways to reapproach driver safety and potentially push for a more simplified transportation environment. 

       

          Many tech companies have also considered how to improve driver safety in general. There are systems called traffic sign recognition (TSR) that utilize a camera to detect road signs and display the information on a car’s dashboard interface (Honda). This can create a more personal and accessible relationship between the sign and the driver. However, the sign is displayed digitally in the same form as on the road, therefore, unless the system uses audio to read the meaning of the sign, drivers would still be susceptible to misinterpretation. Systems like these, if not employed in the majority of new car models, could be used in Google and Apple maps as well. Other companies, specifically car manufacturers working towards more intelligent transportation like Ford, are developing vehicle to vehicle (V2V) communication systems that “alerts drivers to slow down or accelerate to avoid collision with cars approaching from other directions” (Gopal). The idea here is that the cars are technologically connected and respond to each other appropriately to avoid accidents. While this could decrease road traffic accidents, this would only be the case if most vehicles on the road employ the system to contribute to the communication. Furthermore, this solution does not account for other dangers like winding roads, construction, or falling rocks. Among all of these proposed solutions, there are pieces from each that answer a portion of the problem but fails to successfully resolve the complications drivers face with traffic communication.

 

Conclusion

          The road sign and signal system implemented in most countries today has one purpose: to increase the efficacy and safety of transportation. However, as seen in numerous areas from Thailand to Ghana, the reality is quite the opposite and road sign incomprehensibility is one of the leading causes of road traffic accidents. Because these systems have the intent of universality, this is an issue of global communication and demands attention from nations across the world. This can be concluded to be the result of the following three points: (1) many road signs continue to employ text-supported messages that contribute to language barriers, (2) pictography fails in the context of traffic communication because of the complexity of abstract graphical content, that creates cognition errors for all drivers, domestic and foreign, (3) pictography is culturally embedded creating misinterpretations across borders as drivers travel internationally. The system in place is not entirely insufficient, however it will require substantial revision to promote road safety. While solutions have been proposed from a variety of different sources, from city planners to tech companies, there still exists flaws in the potential future of traffic communication. It is clear that further research is necessary to develop a more resolute plan which may ultimately involve piecing together the valuable aspects of various propositions. The issue of road safety has never been an uncomplicated task to take on, however through this research, the source of the problem can be identified and used to develop a more comprehensive, appropriate, and effective solution. 

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Works cited

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