UK vs. USA
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The comparison takes a familiar feature of the British roads and puts it literally side by side with its counterpart elsewhere. I have provided explanation in an almost opinionless way, and Andy (having lived with both systems) offers his opinion below. Many thanks to Andy for taking all the American photos (and one of the UK ones too!) and for offering his commentary.
In an effort to appease CBRD's incensed American visitors, a re-write to this page is on the cards in the near future!
Left, a reassurance marker on I-476 in Pennsylvania. The class of road is denoted by the shield (this is an Interstate) and the direction is on the separate tab at the top (all numbered roads are signed with a cardinal direction).
Right, an ID plate for the M1 at junction 46. The motorway symbol (used throughout Europe) marks the start of motorway restrictions - the opposite is the same symbol with a diagonal red line through it.
Andy says: These shields are to be found along the whole length of Interstates, and like other US smaller roadsigns are mounted on somewhat flimsy pieces of (Meccano-like) perforated metal which don't stand in the ground too well. Tilting and collapse often results...
Left, a rather worn sign pointing out that this is the exit for US-13 and Chester. All directional signing is green-backed. This photo also shows a nice example of American street lighting.
Right, you can't match up a photo better than that! Large white lights here at the northern end of the M61 and a gantry-mounted direction sign (for the M65 junction) just ahead.
Andy says: Hopefully these signs on the Commodore Barry Bridge will soon be replaced (the roadway is currently being redone). This is button-copy, something not seen in the UK for decades on any major (and most minor) routes!
Left, more directions for the next three exits, spaced at half mile intervals. Personally I find this a little cluttered.
Right, overhead gantry signing for the next exit along, here on the M60/M62 at Manchester. It is unusual to see signing more than one junction in advance.
Andy says: Signs such as the I-276/476 one above cause me no end of confusion. I've seen three or four exits posted on the same gantry, and the US habit of not aligning exit signs with the appropriate lane underneath REALLY doesn't help. The right-hand side shows how it should be done ;)
Left, a closer shot of a directional sign, this one two miles in advance (unheard-of in Britain). Again, this is an Interstate shield.
Right, alternative form of direction signing, and more common than gantry signs. This one is half a mile in advance of the A65 junction on the M6.
Andy says: A somewhat basic approach on I-476, but who's complaining? It works well enough. See the 'old exit' number at the top? The definitive sign of a recent re-numbering (completed 2003). And two miles of notification is quite a luxury. Well, until three other exits shoehorn themselves between this sign and Exit 16.
Left, three lanes split to four and go their separate ways here, and this unusual arrow shows that. America doesn't usually use diagrams, but using lanes within the arrow is interesting, if a little hard to read.
Right, motorways split here. Further along is the equivalent to the US sign (but I can't find the photo of it), one of the few where we don't use diagrams! The centre lane is signed "M27 & M275".
Andy says: The split arrow certainly gets the message across. Very visible from a distance. It would look quite out of place on a UK gantry. UK gantries continue to remain very formal and sensible. The US one really has some artistic flair about it ;)
Left, yikes! This accompanies a simple traffic light. They read "stop here on red", "no turn on red", "right lane must turn right" and "left lane must turn left". A tad cluttered for my liking.
Right, simpler way of saying what lane must go where - a diagram of the upcoming lane arrangement. No signs to remind drivers what to do when they see a red traffic light either.
Andy says: Ugh..sign clutter! This is something that US roads have an awful lot of. The signs you see on the left are so overly verbose and feel the need to explain everything in a word-heavy mess rather than a neat, universally understood diagram such as the right-hand example. And why do we need to be told to 'Stop Here On Red'? Answers on a postcard...
Christian McArdle replies:
This is required for two separate reasons for each direction due to US traffic law's confusion over traffic lights. For the right turn, you are sometimes permitted to filter right (giving way to other traffic) when the light is red. This sign tells the driver that this is not the case here. The signs for the left turn indicate that it is not permitted to creep forward and wait for a break in oncoming traffic. You must wait behind the line until there is a gap. This, of course, means that you never get a turn if there is unlimited oncoming traffic, as when the light changes to red, you don't get to sneak in.
Left, Interstate road surface, with white lane markings. Here we also see some residents of the local prison helping make the hard shoulder a tidier place to be.
Right, British road surfacing, fairly new. Notice the widely spaced lines (narrow spacing is a warning of a hazard ahead), rumble strips at the edge of the carriageway and white reflectors between lanes - these are all standard.
Andy says: Road-lining paint on Interstates is much less reflective than the UK motorway equivalent. Couple that with a lack of effective catseyes / roadstuds, you have a very difficult-to-see road surface at night or during bad weather. The rumblestrip concept is common to both countries; in the US it sits as a series of indentations beside the shoulder lane marker.
Jeff Kitsko adds:
Pennsylvania doesn't normally use prisoners to clean the roadsides. Businesses, groups and individuals "adopt" a section of roadway to keep clean.
Left, central reservation (median) featuring a left shoulder (good!) and concrete "Jersey" barriers (bad!).
Right, central reservation (from overhead, sorry) with different surface colouring to the main carriageway. No right shoulders, but sturdy guardrails (the fencing on the left is the height of technology I hear).
Andy says: Not every Interstate has a left-hand shoulder, but when present they do come in very handy (judging by the amount of shredded rubber left from puncture-laden trucks). These Jersey Barriers hide a nice amount of steel reinforcement inside, and aren't the most accomodating things to collide with.
Left, something important happening? These lights flash. Tune in your radio to the frequency indicated on the sign. Yes, that's the one, obscured by the other sign.
Right, carry on listening to your music, you won't need your radio. This matrix sign is used here to warn drivers entering the motorway, but they are also placed every mile along the central reservation (as standard since the 1970's).
Andy says: Yes, tune to 1640 AM and struggle to hear the scratchy tape-loop of nothing but a reminder that you should tune to 1640 AM to keep up to date with...er..you get the idea.
Jeff Kitsko adds:
When an incident occurs, it's a very informative source!
Left, Ramp Metering in action. These lights control the flow of traffic off the sliproad to keep a steady flow without blocking up the main lanes.
Right, one of the Highways Agency's test sites, on the M3 in Hampshire. If these are successful then this could become a common sight.
Andy says: The general idea here is a two-lane filter, hence two vehicles on a green light. Only recently installed (within the past couple of years) but it appears to be doing a grand job on I-476. The UK should have implemented this system a long time ago!
Jeff Kitsko adds:
This was installed in 1999, but because it lacked a central computer system, the signals were turned off. Recently, four of the meters were reactivated.
Left, my favourite! There are no emergency phones along here. Most call boxes on expressways in the USA are located in urban areas.
Right, an emergency phone. These are placed at each side every mile - yes, as standard.
Andy says: A bizarre situation here. Interstate standards don't include mandatory emergency phones, so unless you either catch the eye of a passing State Trooper or happen to be carrying your Nokia with you, it's tough luck on your part. Yet a freeway local to me in New Jersey (four lanes, hard shoulder but not to Interstate standard) has emergency phones. Your guess is as good as mine.
British Influence
It seems that one small corner of the USA once liked our Worboys signs so much that they adopted them for themselves. At some point in the 1970s, Boston, MA set up a new system of urban direction signs, and for reasons unknown lifted the specification from the British standards rather than the American ones. Almost all these renegade signs have vanished now, but Brian Callahan spotted one and sent in a photo.
Brian eventually found someone who could explain the mysterious C-numbers:
I finally found someone who knows what the "C" designation on that Worboys sign in Boston means. This is from Alexander Svirsky who runs a site called massroads.com.
"It's an old sign that indicates old route numbers. Massachusetts used to have 'C' routes that were often bypasses or alternate routes of major roads. Ones that come to mind are C-1 and C-37 in addition to C-28 and C-9. C-1 was the route through the Sumner and Callahan Tunnels up to Saugus along what is now 1A, 60 and U.S. 1.
All the 'C' routes are defunct as of around 1975. Look at any 1950s map of the Boston area to find all the 'C' routes. The sign is a relic and I keep meaning to photograph it myself before someone notices it and removes it."
In Defence...
Edmund Rhudy e-mailed from the US to add this disclaimer:
I feel obligated to point out that the majority of the photographs in the United States section are taken in Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, Pennsylvania is generally regarded as having the second worst roads in the country after Arkansas, so dear British readers should be informed that this is not entirely representative of American roads. Usually they're slightly better, but the general verbosity of the signs never changes. However, before long you find yourself no longer even reading the signs, because you pretty much know what they're going to say before you actually get within a range where the text becomes legible.
Anonymous writes:
After reading the US/UK comparative page, I will agree that Pennsylvania has awful roads. The state's original freeway, the Pennsylvania Turnpike is still one of the most dangerous roads in the US.
It should be noted that the US numbering system is less confusing (to a point). The numbers of interstates increase as you go North and East. Oddly, the older US highway system uses numbers that increase as you go south and west. The US highway system consists of generally 2-lane roadways, many have been replaced and removed, many still exist.
Furthermore, the interstates are numbered so that odd numbered freeways are North-South, even East-West. 3 digit interstates are "special" in that they represent loops or spurs off of the main freeway (I-270 in Columbus, Ohio is a loop around Columbus off of I-70). Exceptions are numerous to this (I-99 in Pennsylvania is out of place, Hawaii's interstates do not follow either, I-69 is East-West in Michigan).
In certain high volume areas emergency phones exist, generally in metropolitan areas. However, the cost for this in states such as Montana is not exactly viable (Of course, some of those areas have no mobile coverage either).
The matrix signs shown in the UK side do not exist outside of metropolitan areas in the US. They are very much a city to city, state to state idea, but are becoming more prevalent in special areas, like cities and mountain areas.
Speed limits vary from 55-75 mph, Some western states are trying to push again for 85mph speed limits due to open road. Non-freeways now have speeds that range from 55-70mph.
The signage sucks in the US, the flimsyness is due to safety regulations for signs that easily give in an auto accident. The only advantage to our signage is an exit numbering system based off of mile markers, as opposed to counting the junctions in order. This helps in determining location greatly (think of the 870-mile I-10 in Texas).
Colin Mackay sheds some light:
In regard to the 911 signs on American roads: I was told on one visit to the US that it was because it used to be that the emergency number was determined by the local phone company (if they provided the service at all) so as you moved about the country you needed to be aware of that information. Of course now pretty much everywhere uses 911. (I am told there are still odd rural patches that use other numbers).
Jeff Kitsko (from pahighways.com) explains the state of Pennsylvanian roads:
I have lived here my whole life and remember when they were really horrible. The state dug itself into a hole, no pun intended, by using bonds to fund the Interstate construction. As the years wore on, the interest on them began to build to the point PENNDOT would have been using 150% of its budget just to pay the interest. It took an act by the state government to forgive the debt, which is how the DOT began to climb out. In fact, in the Overdrive rankings, PA has sometimes been in both the "Worst Roads" and "Most Improved" categories.
Steve Williams (from georgiaroadgeek.com) adds:
Here in Georgia, we have one stretch of interstate (motorway) in the western part of our state that has emeregency phones (callboxes) spaced 0.5 to 1 mile apart.
The motorway in question is I-185, which is a spur route running from I-85 in LaGrange (60 miles SW of Atlanta) to Columbus (total length 50 miles). The motorway also takes you right into the middle of the U.S. Army's Fort Benning military base.
The callboxes run from I-85 to the northern part of Columbus just before you reach the northern bypass motorway US 80/GA 22. This is due to the lack of services (food, petrol, etc.) along the motorway between Columbus and I-85.
Florida has callboxes on rural stretches of the I-10, I-75, and I-95 motorways. Each box is placed at 0.5 mile intervals. Both states (Florida and Georgia) put up big blue signs that denote "BEGIN MOTORIST AID CALL BOXES" and "END MOTORIST AID CALL BOXES" to inform drivers accordingly.
As for overall road conditions, Georgia has one of the best maintained systems in the US.
Matthew Perring writes:
I am a transplanted Brit, and must say that signs here are less logical than in Britain. One of the worst things are the road markings at night: the paint isn't very reflective and we lack cats' eyes and other coloured border markings, altough Illinois Interstates do have them. One principle reason for this would apear to be snow. In Iowa where I now live there can be a lot of it. If you had cats' eyes on the roads they would probably get taken out by the snow plows. Also, road signs are used to convey information that paint on the road surface is used to convey [in the UK] such as stop and yield and passing zones. I feel this is also to prevent it being obscured in the winter as the snow will hang around for weeks. They are also very fond of the stop signs, and the few places they do have yield signs they tend to stick them where you can't see oncoming trafifc!
Ludovic adds:
Re: Anonymous's comment, "The numbers of interstates increase as you go North and East. Oddly, the older US highway system uses numbers that increase as you go south and west."
I am only guessing but - I don't find this odd at all. If anything else, it ensures that the I(nterstate) and US numbers are never the same in the same area. So that one can omit the system's name (I or US) when giving directions. If you're told, "take 1 North" you don't need to be told which type of highway you shold get on. It'll either be an I or a US depending whether you're in, say, California or New Jersey.
Of course, that leaves the problem of where the numbering schemes meet, somewhere in the Midwest...
Stevie D writes:
After 2 weeks driving in America, it's nice to be back here with proper road signs! Worded signs dominate your view, and in particular I found speed limit signs very hard to spot, as they don't stand out at all well (and appear to change at random).
Traffic lights on the far side of the junction, necessitating the "Stop here on red" signs at big intersections, was very disconcerting, and led to lots of emergency stops when I suddenly realised I had to pull up 25 yards before the lights.
Many roads are only signed by the route number and direction, with little and inconsistent use of destinations, making it much more difficult to find your way around. Especially true when the East-West road you're on is actually heading North-South at that point!
Exit signs off the Interstate are confusing, but not half as confusing as the on-ramps, where you never know if the lane that joins the Interstate is going to continue or come to an abrupt end.
Toll booths every few miles asking for as little as 75¢ a time are a pain in the neck - far more efficient to do as the French do and charge you just once, when you leave the tolled section, depending on how far you've travelled.
But worst of all was the hours spent waiting at red traffic lights - hours that could have been saved if they used roundabouts!
Brian thinks Stevie's toll comments are unfair:
I'm guessing that [he] was in New Jersey, notorious for toll roads, as the two most travelled highways are toll roads.
In one way, it does make sense, as the tolls come at county borders. If you use the "speedpass" transponders, as most residents do, you don't even have to stop, making the tolls barely a slow-down. Some are even high-speed, with an overhead sensor and not even a booth. You just go through at 65mph.
