Which freeway/motorway signs are more informative when driving at speed (CA or NZ)?

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frankv

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#1319509 8-Jun-2015 16:11

cisconz:
frankv:
And what does "600m / ONLY" mean? Something is going to change in 600m, got that. But does it mean that the lane 3 will only be for Helensville traffic? Or lane 2 will only be for Cook St/Port? Bizarrely, it appears that going straight ahead will take you both East and West in SH16.

I must admit, I can understand this, I'm used to it as I go past this sign most days. - This is a hangover from when the Victoria Park Tunnel was built.

With you so far...

The SH16 lanes used to be the SH1 South lanes and the SH1 South lanes used to be SH1 North.

Uhuh... so this picture taken from the SH1 South lanes (being the Southern motorway) or are we on SH1 North (given that's the direction we're going)? Or am I completely disorientated? Whatever, still doesn't explain "ONLY"...

The reason for the "Only" is that there are 2 Viaducts next to each other going over Victoria Park.

Riiiighhht.... so, presumably some other word means 3 viaducts ("DULY"?) and another word means one viaduct ("NEARLY"?)

Do *you* design those signs?

I'm sure it makes perfect sense. In some universe other than the one I'm in.

lchiu7

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#1319510 8-Jun-2015 16:13

insane: Having driven in NZ, Australia, France, Italy, Rarotonga and South Africa I'd say that NZ's signs are the clearest.

And if you happen to drive in SoCAL, that won't change your opinion :-)

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Swanny

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#1319799 9-Jun-2015 00:48

I found Italy was pretty bad. Each of say, 3 exit signs (Eg, 2km, 1km and 400m from the off ramp) would say different things. It turns out, from what I can gather all of those places are accessible from that exits. Not great when it's a toll road and the exits may be 30-40km apart. You have plenty of time to think about the mistake you just made.

lNomNoml

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#1319802 9-Jun-2015 01:04

To me NZ signs are much more confusing than South African signs, but I guess it's because I'm used to them.

k1wi

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#1319806 9-Jun-2015 02:40

I think any difference in 'clarity' is more than offset by experience with whichever design is used.

I know I initially felt that the US signs were confusing, simply because they were different to what I was use to. I now kind of like the arrows pointing down to the lane. The other difficulty with US/SOCAL is that ease of comprehension goes down exponentially when lane #s increase and distances between interchange decreases. HOVs plus express plus distributor plus a triple stack or cloverleaf leads to some really tough scenarios to communicate.

Personally I think US city road markings is by far their biggest road communication issue . In that they are largely non-existant. The box comprising of a yellow line with a solid white median used for stop signs in NZ? You don't know how much you rely on it until it's replaced by an optional single white line and a stop sign that is more often than not behind a tree...

lchiu7

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#1320510 9-Jun-2015 18:20

Well it wasn't always clear to me. For example I went down this route a few times on my last trip.

Lanes 1-3 are clear, take you to the 110 South.

Lane 4 is 10 East, Lane 5 10 West (which is where I wanted to go), Lane 6 is 9th Street and Lane 7 is 8th Street (only)

What happens if you say on Lane 6? It doesn't say Only so could you avoid getting off on 9th Street and merge back onto the freeway (quite a common pathway on the SoCAL freeways).

And what does Only mean on Lanes 4 and 5? Does it mean if you are in Lanes 4 and 5 then you can only go down I10 East or West? No sneaking back onto the 110.

Easy for locals, harder for those new to the system. Of course the second and third times I had it down pat the hardest part being getting across the lanes of traffic to where I wanted to be.

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Batman

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#1320534 9-Jun-2015 18:44

ah yous rural folk from the big village of New Zealand :)

apparently London taxi drivers had larger brains before the days of GPS

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lchiu7

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#1321991 10-Jun-2015 12:01

If you make a navigation error on the streets of London, the consequences are not as great as screwing it up on the LA Freeway system (apart from an annoyed passenger either being late for his destination and/or having to pay more for the fare).

I drove for two years on London with my trusty AtoZ. I never got any angst about going the wrong way.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

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