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To be honest this is a general problem with the UK. Try driving on any major street and you'll realize it's plastered with mostly useless signs. A dozen warning

To be honest this is a general problem with the UK. Try driving on any major street and you'll realize it's plastered with mostly useless signs. A dozen warnings assault your senses at any one time, which makes it very difficult to pick out what is actually important. This is compounded by sometimes completely braindead implementation of rules. E.g. most bus lanes in London can be used by motorcyclists, but some cannot. There's no rhyme or reason, the entire thing is decided by a small blue sign at the start of a particular stretch which may or may not have an even smaller motorbike icon on it - among an icon for a bus, taxi and pushbike. Whoever thought this is a good idea is either a moron or deliberately wanted to extract fines from motorcyclists who accidentally use the wrong bus lane.

logifail 2y ago
> To be honest this is a general problem with the UK Hotel lifts would appear to be another example of this. Automated "doors closing" / "doors opening" announcements seem to be present almost everywhere. Presumably a significant number people suffer appaling crush injuries from lift doors in other countries ... or maybe they don't, and companies across the UK just let their Health and Safety conslutants get the upper hand.
- hnlmorg 2y ago
  ...or visually impaired and thus use those announcements to understand what state the lift is in.
  - jakey_bakey 2y ago
    Lol yeah of all the examples to choose Why are the pavements at crossings so bumpy?! It's political correctness gone mad!
  - logifail 2y ago
    > ...or visually impaired and thus use those announcements to understand what state the lift is in ...but only in lifts in the UK? No, that's not a credible hypothesis.
    - hnlmorg 2y ago
      They’re not only in UK lifts and even if they were, that still wouldn’t change the intention of those announcements.
    - consteval 2y ago
      We have those in the US too but we use beeps. Some elevators do use speech so you'll hear "going up" sometimes.
  - miki123211 2y ago
    Blind person here, I find the "doors closing" / "doors opening" announcements pretty tiresome, and I don't think they provide any benefit to us. They sometimes even make things worse. Especially on bilingual elevators (not that uncommon in European countries where English isn't an official language), there are so many announcements that the elevator just can't keep up when there's a lot of traffic. I've seen a few elevators that were always a few announcements behind during periods of high activity. The "lift (elevator) going up / down" announcements, on the other hand, are quite helpful, and I vastly prefer the European system than the American mess of ADA-compliant beeps.
    - lupusreal 2y ago
      Why is the American system a mess? One chime for up, two for down. It's simple and doesn't bother anybody.
      - vizzier 2y ago
        (speaking as a person who isn't blind) The biggest omission seems to be that there is nothing to tell you what floor you've arrived at. This is probably fine for an empty elevator but as soon as it gets busy and there are 10s of floors I'd imagine it gets hard to navigate.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
graemep 2y ago
I agree. Trying to track it all can be distracting.
gambiting 2y ago
I'm sorry, but UK is positively devoid of road signs compared to some other countries lol, I've been driving here for well over a decade and it's really nice how few signs are here and it mostly relies on common sense. Compare to your average road in Poland: https://motofakty.pl/co-5-metrow-znak/ar/c4-16143839 https://motofakty.pl/co-5-metrow-znak/ar/c4-16143839 67 road signs on a 360 metre long stretch of road - and to me, what's shown in the picture is very typical, especially in big cities. There are soooo many signs it's close to impossible to read all of them and still look at the road.
joshuaissac 2y ago
> Try driving on any major street and you'll realize it's plastered with mostly useless signs This is not in line with my personal experience. Can you provide some examples of useless signs on typical roads in the UK?
- cameronh90 2y ago
  The "tunnel ahead" sign always struck me as particularly pointless. Who needs that sign? Surely if you're driving towards a tunnel, the enormous tunnel itself is the indication you need that you're heading towards a tunnel? Honourable mentions for "humps ahead".
  - andylynch 2y ago
    Those are for truck drivers and those carrying dangerous goods The Blackwall Tunnel in London has those signs starting something like ten miles south (ie on the edge of the city!), to try an ensure such vehicles don’t reach the tunnel unwittingly and force it to be closed.
    - cameronh90 2y ago
      I mean the one they put directly in front of a tunnel, with the tunnel picture inside a red triangle. I live quite near Blackwall tunnel and haven’t seen it any of those on the approach. The ones you’re talking about are, I believe, red circles containing the actual restrictions which are, of course, fine. Also strictly speaking, the restrictions, even if those red circles were combined with the tunnel warning, the tunnel warning is still irrelevant - you’d have to follow those restrictions whether or not there was a tunnel.
  - consteval 2y ago
    We have these in the US too because we have a ton of Semi's and big rigs. They can get stuck. Usually the signs include the clearance too, like 12'8". There's some funny videos online of trucks getting a haircut from these. So seems necessary to me.

logifail 2y ago

> To be honest this is a general problem with the UK Hotel lifts would appear to be another example of this. Automated "doors closing" / "doors opening" announcements seem to be present almost everywhere. Presumably a significant number people suffer appaling crush injuries from lift doors in other countries ... or maybe they don't, and companies across the UK just let their Health and Safety conslutants get the upper hand.

hnlmorg 2y ago
...or visually impaired and thus use those announcements to understand what state the lift is in.
- jakey_bakey 2y ago
  Lol yeah of all the examples to choose Why are the pavements at crossings so bumpy?! It's political correctness gone mad!
- logifail 2y ago
  > ...or visually impaired and thus use those announcements to understand what state the lift is in ...but only in lifts in the UK? No, that's not a credible hypothesis.
  - hnlmorg 2y ago
    They’re not only in UK lifts and even if they were, that still wouldn’t change the intention of those announcements.
  - consteval 2y ago
    We have those in the US too but we use beeps. Some elevators do use speech so you'll hear "going up" sometimes.
- miki123211 2y ago
  Blind person here, I find the "doors closing" / "doors opening" announcements pretty tiresome, and I don't think they provide any benefit to us. They sometimes even make things worse. Especially on bilingual elevators (not that uncommon in European countries where English isn't an official language), there are so many announcements that the elevator just can't keep up when there's a lot of traffic. I've seen a few elevators that were always a few announcements behind during periods of high activity. The "lift (elevator) going up / down" announcements, on the other hand, are quite helpful, and I vastly prefer the European system than the American mess of ADA-compliant beeps.
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    Why is the American system a mess? One chime for up, two for down. It's simple and doesn't bother anybody.
    - vizzier 2y ago
      (speaking as a person who isn't blind) The biggest omission seems to be that there is nothing to tell you what floor you've arrived at. This is probably fine for an empty elevator but as soon as it gets busy and there are 10s of floors I'd imagine it gets hard to navigate.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

graemep 2y ago

I agree. Trying to track it all can be distracting.

gambiting 2y ago

I'm sorry, but UK is positively devoid of road signs compared to some other countries lol, I've been driving here for well over a decade and it's really nice how few signs are here and it mostly relies on common sense. Compare to your average road in Poland: https://motofakty.pl/co-5-metrow-znak/ar/c4-16143839 https://motofakty.pl/co-5-metrow-znak/ar/c4-16143839 67 road signs on a 360 metre long stretch of road - and to me, what's shown in the picture is very typical, especially in big cities. There are soooo many signs it's close to impossible to read all of them and still look at the road.

joshuaissac 2y ago

> Try driving on any major street and you'll realize it's plastered with mostly useless signs This is not in line with my personal experience. Can you provide some examples of useless signs on typical roads in the UK?

cameronh90 2y ago
The "tunnel ahead" sign always struck me as particularly pointless. Who needs that sign? Surely if you're driving towards a tunnel, the enormous tunnel itself is the indication you need that you're heading towards a tunnel? Honourable mentions for "humps ahead".
- andylynch 2y ago
  Those are for truck drivers and those carrying dangerous goods The Blackwall Tunnel in London has those signs starting something like ten miles south (ie on the edge of the city!), to try an ensure such vehicles don’t reach the tunnel unwittingly and force it to be closed.
  - cameronh90 2y ago
    I mean the one they put directly in front of a tunnel, with the tunnel picture inside a red triangle. I live quite near Blackwall tunnel and haven’t seen it any of those on the approach. The ones you’re talking about are, I believe, red circles containing the actual restrictions which are, of course, fine. Also strictly speaking, the restrictions, even if those red circles were combined with the tunnel warning, the tunnel warning is still irrelevant - you’d have to follow those restrictions whether or not there was a tunnel.
- consteval 2y ago
  We have these in the US too because we have a ton of Semi's and big rigs. They can get stuck. Usually the signs include the clearance too, like 12'8". There's some funny videos online of trucks getting a haircut from these. So seems necessary to me.