Why US Signs Look Different Than The Rest Of The World’s

[@brandonking1737]

Most of Canada's signs are the same as in the US, with a slight exception being our speed limit signs. They look like the American signs, but ours say "Maximum" instead of "Speed Limit" because Maximum is the same in both English and French.

[@bananatassium7009]

that's actually very cool, well done Canadians on making that call!

[@revcrussell]

I came here just to say that. Canada also has that constitutional division problem where roads are a provincial jurisdiction and treaties are federal.

[@thereisnoaddress]

Came here to say this! Quebec has Minimum signs too and also the only province (region in North America) to use military time on signs -- instead of 7AM to 7PM, it would say 7h - 19h.

[@revcrussell]

@@thereisnoaddress That's because in French (at least Quebec French) they tell time in 24 hours.

[@revcrussell]

@AintNoWay We're just a little bit nicer about things, it goes a long way.

[@shakey2023]

" Americans don't feel the need to listen to anybody least of all their own federal government" too true lol

[@traskforge]

not true enough I'd say

[@johnathin0061892]

If that were actually true, America wouldn't be in the dire situation it is in today. Federalism was a feature, not a bug.

[@dgoddard]

You think that's true, but fail to realize how many morons got the C19 vaccines, and still are looking for more. *sigh* If we'd stop listening to our idiots in charge, this country would be a lot better off. They don't know what's good for us, because they aren't us. But I guess some people like being bundled up in a nice, neat package like the rest of the world. I don't. I'm an individual, not part of some entity. And I'd prefer it to stay that way.

[@deleted-something]

Fr

[@doomsdayrabbit4398]

@@johnathin0061892 The problem is that our federal representation has been suffocated since 1929.

[@mrbigsmile3902]

I’m actually impressed so many countries organized to one set of traffic signs. I wish that happened more often.

[@Lorre982]

like the S.I. (System International of mesurement), common known as metric System

[@drsnova7313]

You say "one set", I say "Why the hell all these pointless minor differences"? I mean, surely if you can come up with this general standard, that everyone follows, you could also standardize the shade of blue used, fonts, borders and sizes. Mind you, the signs remain perfectly readable and understandable with these differences, but it's still weird to have them, when you could just...not have them. Should make it easier and cheaper to produce and source them globally, as a bonus.

[@velvetbutterfly]

@@drsnova7313 you forget different dyes are more common in different parts of the world, it's probable the differences in colours are because they went with the cheapest and most plentiful dye they had that was close enough to the standard proposed

[@stephenlee5929]

@@drsnova7313 Also colours appear differently depending upon the lighting conditions. Why would I wan other countries to be able to supply my country's road signs? Different signs weather differently dependant upon local conditions. Its useful if people recognise the country they are currently in, or at least realise they are not at home, so different rules may apply.

[@agrodavide]

The entire ISO organization: I'm a joke to you?

[@marcwenger9424]

I like how stop signs in France say "stop" but in Quebec say "arret"

[@revcrussell]

Yeah, not the only thing the militant Franaphonie do. KFC is known as such worldwide, except Canada, in Quebec it has to go by PFK.

[@MainInternetUser]

@@revcrussell they all closed now

[@krystiankowalski7335]

Just like how signs in Spain say “stop” but in most of Latin America they say “alto” (edit: or “pare”, I forgot they used a different word in South America)

[@Tax_Collector01]

Quebec is arguably more French than France itself.

[@mardiffv.8775]

France has a lot of foreign tourists by car, being the nr. 1 tourist destination in the world. So using the universal word STOP makes more sense then ARRET. Quebec wants to protect its French language, so ARRET. Learn Quebecois or crash you car and pay up.

[@simrock_]

That stock video of the guy typing on the computer and pulling a kitchen knife is brilliant. Kudos to whoever found that one in the library.

[@rachelredden6682]

What is with these damn bots?

[@TheKeksadler]

if only these bots actually linked to the clip...

[@friendlyhonda3187]

Going to use that in one of my IT tutorial videos for sure.

[@henryml9999]

@@TheKeksadler it’s at 5:14

[@NakAlienEd]

@@rachelredden6682 Wish I knew why they suddenly started popping up everywhere in the last few months. I don't remember seeing them anywhere a year ago.

[@CZpersi]

The advantage of pictograms is that while it takes time to learn them, they are much more visible from a larger distance and most importantly do not require you to understand the language. This comes extremely handy not only in Europe, but also in many countries, which are multilingual by nature - imagine India with its hundreds of languages and non-latin alphabet trying to use text-based signs.

[@vleessjuu]

The first time I saw the word "XING" on a sign in the US, it took me minutes to understand wtf it was trying to tell me.

[@hashbrown777]

Idk, as an aussie, who have similar signage, the words themselves are pictograms. They're mutually unique and you seldom ever read them. White circles are always speedlimits, black rectangles always oneway, red triangles always give way (or roundabouts...which are giveway lol) The words really just teach you the pictogram if you dont already know it...

[@Quovio]

@@vleessjuu what does it mean?

[@Zeneran]

​@Quovio XING = Crossing. So you'll have a sign with a picture of a deer and XING underneath. The word Crossing is usually too long to fit.

[@Quovio]

@@Zeneran woah! Thanks🙏

[@blackm4niac]

It also fits quite nicely into something Jeremy Clarkson once commented on when doing that car show thingy he's famous for: European cars use pictograms for the buttons to indicate what they are supposed to do whereas american cars just put the english word for it on the button. His theory: Because european cars are sold all over europe where everyone speaks a different language having pictograms just makes it easier to sell your french car in italy without having to manufacture new buttons that have the italian words on it. But in america, everyone is expected to be able to speak english, so why use pictograms when you can use words because everyone knows what those words mean.

[@balintvarga5146]

And also, clearly quite a lot of Americans cannot comprehend the sign of something as complicated as a draw bridge so for every idiot's safety, it has to be written with words.

[@Bird_Dog00]

I saw that clip. What surprised me most was that Clarkson was prepared to admit that most adults in the US can read...

[@clonescope2433]

@@balintvarga5146 oh yes because reading words only about like 60 miles per hour past you it's very easy. Most us signs are either one or two words or they use a pictogram along the words.

[@perdhapley4809]

This is the same reason cited for European cars usually having numerical names such as “Volvo 240” while automakers in the USA and Japan almost always give them names like “Caprice” or “Crown”

[@John_C_J]

@@balintvarga5146 Luckily, Europe is idiot free, amirite? *self high fives*

[@SabreVDM]

Australia uses a mish-mash of both, was very intriguing watching this and seeing both very similar and very alien signs.

[@U9DATE]

@just i c e I won’t.

[@teelo12000]

Is it different by state/territory?

[@da4127]

Same in South America, its a mix of both

[@OriginalPiMan]

@@teelo12000 Yes, but actually no. While the states make the rules, they've all agreed to use the same signs as each other. (There is some state by state variation, but it is minor. Usually just a difference of including or not including text by a shared symbol.)

[@frogandspanner]

The Australian ones look like the UK 1950s signs.

[@onbearfeet]

We have SOME pictographic signs here in the US! It's just that they're usually weirdly specific, like, "If you drive through here, a cow might fall on your car." I don't think anyone would believe a "watch out for falling cows" sign (the first time), so that pictogram is my favorite. It really makes you contemplate the potential for projectile bovines.

[@moritz584]

PROJECTILE BOVINES AHEAD

[@Haarhzh]

A particular scene in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail comes to mind here… “Fetchez la vache!”

[@loebi488]

Interestingly, here in China, despite it does not join the Vienna convention, Chinese roadway signs are basically aligned with it.

[@reckergamer1879]

Isn't KZbin blocked for you?

[@MustNotContainSpaces]

@@reckergamer1879 being on KZbin, you should have seen enough VPN-ads to know that they exist…

[@rodia_the_smg_guy5575]

oh that's interesting

[@BrutusAlbion]

​@@reckergamer1879 its always funny when a chinese person pops their head over the great chinese firewall. Double points if they shit on the rest of the world while still hiding behind their firewall pretending China is superior nation. Luckily most chinese people are just people like anyone else, just chilling out on the internet telling everyone they're a sussybaka.

[@yuritarted984]

@@MustNotContainSpaces the 20th ccp congress is happening usually they don't really care if u use vpns but during this week they block it out

[@LordofGold]

What I really love about Austrias road signs are those really old fashioned ones, where the "No motorcycles" sign has a really old motorcycle and the guy is wearing a scarf. Or the "No cars" sign shows you a car from the 1900s. The railroad sign that you see in 3:16 with the old steam locomotive on it is actually still in use in most parts of Europe today!

[@AEIOU05]

I also love how pedestrians still wear hats on the signs

[@leDespicable]

Seeing those old steam locomotives on a sign really throws me off sometimes, it' something you never see when growing up in Germany lol. I grew up either seeing signs with a fence on them to indicate a crossing with barriers, or an electric locomotive to indicate unguarded crossings. The fence has since been abolished, nowadays the only sign that's used is the one with the electric locomotive.

[@varana]

@@leDespicable Growing up in Germany, I do remember the steam engine. ;) Germany changed the picture in the early 90s; before that, both Germanies had a steam train on the signs.

[@Aphelia.]

I googled it, omg- I love how everyone is wearing hats on the signs lol

[@SturmZebra13]

Belgium also has really old-school signs

[@a1white]

I hate the way that videos don't have conclusions noawadays, they just fade into a sponsored message about Brilliant, NordVPN, Squarespace etc.

[@Edawg_91]

Australian here, no wonder I found US signs so familiar when driving there, ours are near identical down to the font. Only exception being speed limit signs.

[@reillywalker195]

That makes sense. Australia has no land borders, so its road signage can be understood easily by most drivers if it's in written English. The typeface used for it, Highway Gothic, is also public domain if I remember correctly.

[@coover65]

And the symbol signs with kangaroos and koalas!😁😀

[@jaycee330]

That wasn't always the case, pre-metric, Australia speed limit signs were EXACTLY the same.

[@razvandobos9759]

Yeah you Aussies have the exact same stop sign as we and Canada do, down to the font.

[@bryandyer5454]

How difficult was the switch to right-side driving?

[@RageXBlade]

As a roadsign manufacturer, the details of what signs are supposed to be in certain sizes and not in other is also interesting (and usually disregarded by our customers lol). Another interesting feature of road signs is the type of retro-reflective material that they are printed or laid onto. There are a lot of different patterns. Fun fact: In the USA, road signs are technically classified as a traffic control devices, which makes them sound way fancier than they really are. Source: Someone who reads the MUTCD files almost daily

[@AaronOfMpls]

@RageXBlade: "(and usually disregarded by our customers lol)" In that vein, I've seen a few rural counties here in Minnesota that switched from the old state-standard county road signs (white squares) to US-standard (blue pentagons) ... and promptly put up signs that were too _small_ to read at highway speed. 🤦

[@mehere8038]

well they are actually "traffic control devices" A give way or stop sign has a similar impact on traffic control to a roundabout or traffic lights doesn't it, (or at least it should if it's being used properly & it's use enforced), therefore they are traffic control devices, same as the others are, aren't they

[@sternmg]

I bet that your customers are bureaucrats, so they will, like most people, grossly under-estimate that a stop sign on a multi-lane street must be at least 36” wide and tall.

[@RageXBlade]

@@sternmg actually, most of them are construction or road work companies.

[@alecerdmann8505]

@@AaronOfMpls FYI, the didn't switch from state-standard to US Standard. In Minnesota (I have lived here my whole life), the black and white squares are still used for County Roads that are only funded and maintained by the county. The blue pentagon with the gold stripe indicates a "County State-Aid Highway," sometimes abbreviated CSAH. That means that while it is a county highway, the county receives additional funding from the state to build and maintain these routes that are deemed more important than other county roads. The blue and gold coloring mimics the standard MN State Highway sign coloring. This doesn't change your point that some of these signs are two small for highway speeds, of course.

[@kotzpenner]

2 things that might need to be added to this issue: 1. European signs are designed to be recognized even when obstructed by dirt or snow, at least the important ones. Stop sign is unique, as are several others. 2. It also helps analphabets, if I couldn't read, I would probably be completely lost in the US. In Europe you just learn the basic shapes and colours.

[@jimzecca3961]

Reading is probably a good thing to be able to do before you try to drive. How do you pass the test to get a license? But I'm also sure that most people, even poor readers and those that don't speak English, could easily understand most US road signs. A yellow diamond with a deer jumping has no words and means watch out for deer. If it's red and it's an octagon it's a stop sign. Etc

[@kotzpenner]

@@jimzecca3961 you can finish your license at least in Germany if you can’t read. There is even a special test for it where you’re read the questions aloud. It’s part of the overall non-discrimination effort. Also I obviously mean the signs that are just a rectangle with Text in them, like in the video.

[@DJstarrfish]

Re 1st point - What, you mean like _all_ important signs? Are you implying that Americans use red octagons for something other than the stop sign?

[@kotzpenner]

@@DJstarrfish yeah all important signs. No I never said the US uses octagons for something else than STOP. But maybe other countries do, it was just an example.

[@lzh4950]

Uniquely Japan used an inverted red triangle instead as a stop sign

[@ihathtelekinesis]

Ireland is kind of a special case. Most of their signs are in Vienna style, but their warning signs are the American-style yellow diamonds.

[@vytah]

It's not that special, many countries do this. But all those countries also have some random differences from Vienna other than the warning sign shape, for example the Irish one-way road sign is round instead of square, no entry is a crossed arrow instead of a bar, dead end is white instead of blue, and so on.

[@MindTheGap1]

The no stopping sign also has a white background

[@RolloTonéBrownTown]

With all the famine and whiskey I'd imagine there are a lot of special cases

[@oenrn]

Is that for all the American tourists who somehow think they're Irish because 200 years ago some Irish guy they've never met crossed the pond?

[@ebnertra0004]

Japan does this, too. I think yellow diamond-style warning signs are a supported design in the Vienna Convention

[@geronimowindow]

Here in Canada they follow more or less the same standards as US road signs, but less wording used and more pictograms because of bilingualism. Apparently the standard of yellow diamond warning signs is also used in Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and most surprisingly Ireland

[@mehere8038]

yup yellow/orange diamonds are definitely the standard for "warning" signs in Australia. That means they're not legally binding info on them, just information to assist drivers. Legally binding signs are in other colours, I think any colour but yellow, but not sure on that. Stop sign's red & legally binding, one way's black & white & legally binding, speed limit signs are the European design in this & legally binding. Kinda weird Europe didn't adopt the same codes for warning signs, given, from this video, it was the US & related that were first

[@hungtheheroluu]

Don't forget Myanmar/Burma, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, which also use the yellow diamond warning signs.

[@lzh4950]

@@hungtheheroluu Malaysia's warning signs are also often mounted on checkered white & black poles, like zebra crossing light poles in the UK & traffic light poles in the Netherlands

[@jaycee330]

@@mehere8038 If Australia is following MUTCD, then yellow are precautionary, and black/red on white is regulatory (Speed Limits, No Parking, No Entry) and so forth. Also, MUTCD signs are generally LARGER to see than Vienna signs, thus easier to spot down the road, especially at night.

[@geoffroi-le-Hook]

Canadian School Crossing signs have the US shape and Européen colour scheme

[@DutchLabrat]

You can paint a lane on the road bright red, stencil a clearly recognisable bicycle every 25 meters, have a large blue sign with again a clearly recognisable bicycle on it at every entrance, .... and the average American tourist would walk on it, stand still right in the middle, and then complain about all the bicycles there. Some people just.....

[@thatpitter]

Will be honest, (and idk if there was one) but if there was not an obvious walking path nearby I would assume it’s a shared lane - but I can imagine there probably *is* one, and in that case, yeah we really can be incompetent sometimes

[@gregrelyea2854]

Since you mentioned the MUTCD you should do a video on when the US spent millions on developing a new highway font (Clearview) only to learn after it had been installed that it was actually terrible and all Clearview signs needed to be reverted back to Highway Gothic. As a roadway engineer who does sign design it's a fascinating story as is when the signs were required to be changed from all caps to mixed case.

[@MarcBookPro]

Except in Texas where they continue to install signs with the Clearview font.

[@linkly9272]

Apparently the interm testing phase of it was reintroduced in March 2018, so unless there was another development since then, new signs may/may not use Clearview or Highway Gothic.

[@ivanjermakov]

Vox made a great video on this topic

[@RageXBlade]

As a roadsign manufacturer, the details of what signs are supposed to be in certain sizes and not in other is also interesting (and usually disregarded by our customers lol). Another interesting feature of road signs is the type of retro-reflective material that they are printed or laid onto. Fun fact: road signs are technically classified as a traffic control devices, which makes them sound way fancier than they really are.

[@mack.attack]

They can use either one, I thought

[@somitomi]

It's worth noting that the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic was already a revised and amended version of the earlier 1949 Geneva Protocol and standardised roadsigns were already specified in their earliest predecessor, the 1909 "Convention with Respect to the International Circulation of Motor Vehicles" ratified by a handful of European countries.

[@Rokegle135]

Y do you know this

[@vez3834]

@@Rokegle135 Never underestimate nerds. We have powers you can only dream of.

[@Rokegle135]

@@vez3834 until I lock y'all outside and force y'all to socialize

[@vez3834]

@@Rokegle135 No, please no...

[@somitomi]

@@Rokegle135 It happened to nudge a piece of information about early road signs I remembered from a book on the history of motorisation in my country, so I checked the book to find the date and then read a bit about the various conventions on international road traffic.

[@JarbasCoqueiro]

The signal for no stopping in Brazil is also different. It's like the signal for no parking in the US but when there's X crossing it also means that you cannot stop. Edit: Road narrows: Similar to the US signal but it has a symbol

[@jaycee330]

The "no parking" sign in Brasil has an E instead of P, so there you go...

[@lzh4950]

Meanwhile Singapore uses a blue rectangle sign "Narrow lanes ahead" accompanied by a red rectangular 'SLOW' sign

[@kineticdeath]

As an australian I can safely say i recognised pretty much all those "US" signs except for things like the US speed limit signs. Our signs down under are very similar, only some slight variations on things like the no stopping which is a red rectangle with "no stopping" in white type

[@jaycee330]

If you were driving pre-metric, you would have recognised the speed limit signs as well. They were the same (and in mph).

[@lzh4950]

Quite a lot of other countries also use the American-style yellow diamond warning sign instead of the red tringular one in 0:40 e.g. Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, Ireland. Meanwhile Singapore uses both - the diamond ones are for temporary use e.g. where there're road diversions due to construction works nearby, while the triangular ones are permanent signs

[@freddiehg2137]

What I also like about the non-US system is that the shapes and colours already give a way (part of) the meaning of the sign. For example, the Stop sign is the only octagonal one. So if in case of mist, snow, vandalism or something else only a shape is visible, you still know it's a stop sign. The same applies to the 'give priority' sign (only inverted triangle) and 'priority road' (only tilted square). And even for other signs you can see part of the meaning: a round red and white (and possibly black) sign is always a prohibition, a round blue and white sign is a commandment, and a triangular red and white (and again possibly black) sign is a warning. At least that's how it works in the Netherlands but I've seen this or a similar system in most European countries I've been in.

[@jeffmorris5802]

Uh... Pretty sure the US stop sign is the only octagonal sign in the US.

[@derpinator4912]

This is also true in the US. For example, a yellow diamond is a warning, if it's a black and white rectangle it's a legal thing like a one way or speed limit, the stop and yeild (give priority?) signs are the one ones with their shape, etc.

[@jasonreed7522]

US signs follow similar principles. And text + background color indicates the meaning of the sign. Black on White means its a law, break it and you get a ticket. Black on Yellow is an advisory, like for a steep hill or recommend speed for a turn (based on tactor trailer listing). Its not illegal to ignore but physics doesn't give tickets, it gives crashes. (I think if you aren't technically speeding but are going too fast for road conditioning you can still get in legal trouble, its not a hard line but if you crash from excessive speed its pretty clear you crossed it) White on Green is an navigational aid like a steet name or indicator city. (Indicator city being a well known town/city in the direction the road goes, usually paired with distance to that city) And White on Blue is an attractions advisory so things like gas, hotels, restaurants, campgrounds. (And i believe brown and white is permited to indicate natural features like a lake or trailhead for a mountain) I know purple gets used sometimes but i forget its connotations. Regardless, US signs have basically all the same benefits in that color and shape indicates alot of importance even when partially or fully obscured. And if you really can't see the signs you should either slow down or get off the road because it isn't safe to be on.

[@fullfungo]

Do you mean *give away* ?

[@killerbee.13]

@@jasonreed7522 White on blue also entirely replaces white on green on highways that connect directly to airports (at least in my area) though I don't entirely know why

[@dannypipewrench533]

2:45 And then get pancaked into oblivion by Thomas and Friends.

[@FlyerFinn92]

😂😂😂😂😂

[@redyau_]

Just a small stumble in the thumbnail, as I'm sure other have pointed it out as well: The european one way sign is rectangular. The sign you put there means you can only turn right at the intersection (but it may be a two way road)

[@reeveliya9294]

Also the sign with only one bar means you are allowed to park for about 15min :) With the X it means not parking at all.

[@paulh.9526]

​@Reeveliya The parking thing seems to be more country specific. In France, it's just no parking. The difference between stopping and parking is by purpose, it's a stop if you are picking up or dropping of people or cargo

[@eikuz]

@@reeveliya9294 atleast in Finland: one bar means no parking and full X means no stopping. Stopping means: Stopping the car for loading or unloading of passengers or cargo for a short period. Anything else is parking. you can stop in a no parking area to load or unload, you can't stop and run to the store because that would be parking.

[@annabelholland]

While warning signs in Europe use pictograms wherever possible, if one cannot be established due to the difficulty of making a pictogram, an exclamation mark in a red triangle is used followed by a plate below it showing the nature of the hazard in the local language(s) whereas in the US, the nature of the hazard is shown inside the yellow diamond warning sign.

[@hazgebu]

There are mostly triangles with the hazard shown inside all over Europe. Not just a exclamation mark, they are pretty rare. At least in the DACH - IT - BENELUX region

[@Moviefreak893]

@@hazgebu in my little town here in Finland there is an Exclamation Triangle with a text below that just says "Dangerous intersection"

[@annabelholland]

@@hazgebu your comment is very similar to mine. While the use of an exclamation mark (other danger) road sign may be uncommon in your area, it is quite common in my area (UK) as there are hazards that are difficult or impossible to use a pictogram for. These include (from what i've seen): blind summit lorries turning hidden dip

[@mjudec]

Yup. My favourite one was in Southern Scotland (somewhere near Dumfries I'm sure) Which was a warning triangle with an exclamation mark, then the sign underneath.... "OTTERS" Beautiful.

[@stephenlee5929]

@@mjudec Are the Otters dangerous, or do they distract drivers from the vey dangerous haggises?

[@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor]

Here in Australia, we mostly seem to use the American style signs. I never even considered that there were different styles of signs beyond putting it in their native language.

[@centurion1945]

Me a U.S. based Civil Engineer opening this video: "Oh boy! I hope Sam talks about the history of the MUTCD, an extremely dense and technical manual of almost no interest to anyone outside my specific field" As I glance at the 800 some odd pages of the my 2009 edition on a shelf approximately 5 feet away from my computer.

[@ArtiePenguin1]

Unfortunately he didn't. These videos (on the Half as Interesting channel) are his low effort videos. He'd much rather put a full one minute ad at the end of the video. Also, Sam should have noted that AASHO is now AASHTO (pronounced "ash-tow").

[@RichTCS]

As a young civil engineer many years ago, I got a free copy of the MUTCD when our office accidentally ordered two copies instead of just one. I was very proud to keep it for a long time until my copy was several versions out of date. Now I can just get it online…!

[@ArtiePenguin1]

@@RichTCS It's nice that the US government offers the document for free online. Canada's MUTCD equivalent (MUTCDC) is only offered for a high price of around $1600.

[@soundscape26]

@@ArtiePenguin1 Ads help pay the bills.

[@ArtiePenguin1]

@@soundscape26 Yes I understand that, but I pay for YT Premium so it's annoying to see an ad. Also, it's a whole minute of advertisement in a 6 minute video. That means 17% of the video is entirely advertising. That's too big of a ratio. A 30 second ad would be more appropriate.

[@jtryan3652]

Most of South America uses a mix as well, with the no parking sign (crossed out P) being a crossed out E (for prohibido estacionar), similar to the US

[@julieharden2433]

Same in Mexico.

[@theaguirre1996]

Yes. In South America, stop signs are "PARE", whereas in Central America and Mexico say "ALTO".

[@wta1518]

@@theaguirre1996 The US also has PARE signs in Puerto Rico.

[@AlexCaspian]

Ecuador also has road signs much more similar to the US ones, especially "Keep right", "Bicycle crossing", "No right turn", "No U turn"

[@the747videoer]

Australia and NZ use an interesting blend of MUTCD and Vienna Convention styled signage. Canada's signs are also MUTCD styled, with Quebec having more picture - rather than word - based signage. Also, speaking of the federal gov't extorting DOTs.. From 1956 to 1993, Florida would give their US route shield signs various colors rather than the plain black and white signs, in order to make the routes more identifiable. This is also why state road A1A is A1A and not just 1, as to prevent confusion with US 1. Unfortunately, FHWA was so offended by Florida getting colorful with their signs that they threatened to pull funding from Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) over it, despite FDOT spending state money on it.

[@danielbishop1863]

Arizona also tried colored shields, except that the color was based on the direction (orange for north, green for south, brown for east, and blue for west). Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_shield

[@FharishAhmedPortfolio]

1:33 Bless you!

[@michaelneichel9543]

When I was driving in the US as a European, I often subconsciously didn't pay attention to the speed limit signs, because they look to similar to unimportant signs in Europe as like directional signs to places. In the end I didn't know what the speed limit was and probably driving too fast. The round sign with the red circle is more memorable and is geometrical different from normal directional signs.

[@EWOODJ]

Even though it said “Speed Limit”?

[@drsnova7313]

@@EWOODJ You can't read every sign. You automatically filter by shape and color. Our signs for "roadside attraction" are brown, and as a driver, you learn to completely ignore any brown sign, and instead focus on the road. So if I was driving in a country where speed limit signs were on a brown background, I'd likely have the same problem. Not that I miss all of them, but definitely some of them, until I eventuall get used to them.

[@danielbishop1863]

Well, if you *had* noticed the signs, you might have misinterpreted them as being kilometers per hour instead of miles per hour, and driven at only 62% of the speed limit.

[@jaycee330]

@@danielbishop1863 Except, he should have known that White rectangular signs are regulatory in the first place (and not to be ignored) and his speedo would have been in mph anyway, so he wouldn't have driven too slow.

[@penguinsfan251]

Every speed limit sign in the USA says SPEED LIMIT. The USA is far bigger than any European nation so it is not cost effective to change everything to match Europe.

[@Secretfire21]

i live in germany, and another difference to america is that we have a real "written" test to get a drivers liscence. some of the signs are not very intuitive but road safety is among the highest in the world here.

[@venangoproductions]

Oh i remember that

[@MainInternetUser]

Because we learn it but in america they make it easy so idiots can drive

[@oakenshadow6763]

We have a writen test. It's just poorly writen and way too easy. -__-

[@vincentking8874]

I’ve heard rumors that some places in the states have legit tests but the one I actually took was a joke.

[@mardiffv.8775]

Nothing wrong with German road signs, your neighbor from the Netherlands.

[@JeremyWS]

There actually is a road in the US that is marked in kilometers. Interstate 19 is the country's only continuous highway that lists distances in kilometers, not miles. Starting just north of the border at Nogales, Interstate 19 stretches 101 kilometers to Tucson.

[@Ellestra]

In Hawaii roads are marked in both miles and kilometers

[@CL-go2ji]

How did that hapen?

[@JP-pq9xi]

As you get closer to the Tijuana border in San Diego, they start listing the next exit in kilometers. It's kind of trippy to see KM on US freeway signs.

[@tstcikhthys]

It's marked in _kilometres,_ but yes.

[@BryanLu0]

@@tstcikhthys American English spells it meter

[@fmg_draws]

When watching American movies, I always just thought that those signs were set pieces to make everything look a bit vintage because surely no country would have such impractical signs like tha- oh

[@jimzecca3961]

How are they not practical? They're different than signs in other parts of the world but they're very distinctly designed and make a lot of use of different sizes, colors, shapes as well as symbols and words.

[@fmg_draws]

@@jimzecca3961 okay yeah, I‘m sure they make a lot of sense if you’re used to them. You just to have to imagine that little German me is watching tv and sees those signs with a lot of words on them and is confused because you‘d kind of have to read a little text every time you see one

[@arcadeshift5071]

​@@fmg_draws We don't have to read much of anything. Seeing a sign we've seen 10000000 times is recognizable with or without text (i.e. familiar size/shape/color/font of a particular sign). I feel bad for non-English speakers in the US, though.

[@arcadeshift5071]

I've driven in mainland Europe and the US (American, hello). Europe is more practical and uniform. It's neat, it makes sense, and its signs and rules apply to many different countries. American-exceptionalism aside, does it really matter that we have different looking traffic signs? We're a different continent with a different history and have over 100 years of driving pedigree in which we're all familiar with our traffic signs. I understand people from all over the world can visit, rent cars, and get confused but 99% of us on the roads each day are already familiar with our "oddball" signs. I like when countries and continents have different idiosyncrasies. I didn't need to take a test to understand EU country's road signs, I just kind of figured it out. If you're a European driving in the US, I bet you will know the bright red sign at intersections means "stop" in whatever your native language is, even if you don't speak English.

[@realdragon]

There's a lot about american movies I thought that were just in the movie. I remember watching some american movie as a kid and woman was giving birth, so husband started driving her to hospital with car. At that moment I though "Oh they're not calling ambulance to make it more dramatic"

[@TimeKitt]

US metric speed signs are circles where we still post both. US uses both road narrows signs, but more commonly the lane merge sign is both text and picture.

[@AlexCaspian]

Metric speed limit signs with a black circle outline are rarely found in the US, but can be seen in Belize and Guyana because these two countries use metric system units as in most countries of the world

[@JoelRipke]

That "existential urbanist" bit was brilliant.

[@plixplop]

I can't even get used to Oregon's weird "SPEED 55" instead of "SPEED LIMIT 55" signs

[@alexroeggla8708]

If you ever are in Europe and say: "damn those are ugly signs" you are in Austria

[@wta1518]

No, you're just in Europe. I want to punch whoever thought red on blue was a good combination in the throat.

[@Jabberwockybird]

Austria has never been known for their good visual artists. Musicians perhaps, but yeah, let's not talk about the painters.

[@jaycee330]

If you are ever in Europe driving on a freeway and the supplemental signs have a paragraph of text, you are in Italy.

[@CaroAbebe]

@@Jabberwockybird Actually, that’s not true. Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Maria Lassnig, Arik Brauer, Ernst Fuchs, Rosina Wachtmeister, Albin Egger-Lienz, to Name just a few. If you haven’t seen any of their works or at least heard some of these names, you can’t be into arts.

[@jakubadamczyk1523]

@@CaroAbebe It was a joke about Hitler 🤦‍♂

[@CoolAsFreya]

Australia made its own adaptation of America's MUTCD in 1964 and the current standards are still largely based on this (with some modifications and additions). So American street signs actually look very familiar to Australians! There's a few exceptions that have been picked up from the UN version. Old mph speed signs looks like the American ones but when Australia went metric they put a red circle around the kph speed signs to differentiate them, which is still the standard to this day.

[@Jordan_Is_Here]

Yeah I was looking at the thumbnail thinking the American ones look normal lol. Thanks for the insight into Australian signs :)

[@347Jimmy]

Good explanation, I was yet another Aussie noticing the US signs were mostly familiar patterns

[@AaronOfMpls]

The US MUTCD actually includes standards for metric speed limit signs. They put a black circle around the number, with "km/h" in small text below the circle. I don't think any have ever been posted, though.

[@ScottMStolz]

The U.S. MUCTD used to specify that speed limit signs in metric had to have a circle around the number to make it more obvious that it was in km/h and not mph. The U.S. tried to convert to metric in the 70's but gave up, so the MUTCD actually specified how to design metric speed limit signs.

[@ScottMStolz]

@@AaronOfMpls The metric signs were posted along several test corridors to see how they performed. Apparently they did not perform well, and these corridors were converted back to mph. I am told that you can see some metric signs near the borders, but I have never seen one in person.

[@LostsTVandRadio]

I'm not sure there's any pressing need to change road signs just as long as they're clear. I drive in the UK, in Europe, in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and have never found any difficulty. Besides, variety is what you hope for when travelling overseas.

[@dominictemple]

Glad to see my faves Adam Something and Not Just Bikes be recognised for their hard work at 1:20

[@6z0]

Well of course. They’re all Nebula partners

[@jdatlas4668]

Boy I sure hope it's more interesting than "we ain't letting no standard dictate what to do"...

[@silly_lil_guy]

i love my country 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️ Still cis btw probably

[@dominikk9657]

@@silly_lil_guy TF?

[@BreadAccountant]

it wasn't

[@John_C_J]

Well, it is exactly that. Similar to every other "why is x in US different from the rest of the world?" video.

[@toobig7150]

@@John_C_J I hope that it doesn't have a really really bad influence into the development and potential growth of us. Because there's now way US isn't going to ignore factually better way of doing healthcare, public transport, social equality and more just because " we are different" mentality... Right?

[@GeoMeridium]

Honestly, I like that the US signs are more descriptive

[@Ping63ms]

Well the signs are going to be a problem to immigrants who don’t know english

[@ZetaPyro]

I really appreciate Sam's dedication to pronouncing the acronym as mutt-kid

[@OmnipresentPotato]

And the little "Gesundheit" at the bottom of the screen when he said "AASHU"

[@AndyGneiss]

As someone who uses the MUTCD at work, I also enjoyed that. We just say the five letters when talking about it, though.

[@ChristianAkacro]

I herd u liek mutt-kids?

[@RichTCS]

@@AndyGneiss Same here. I’ve never heard it pronounced the way he says it until this video ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@Estelise]

Right? When in fact the industry spells it out as M-U-T-C-D when talking about it. I loved it. Made me smile!

[@PanduPoluan]

In Indonesia, "No Stopping" is a red-slashed "S" in a white disc with red circle border. Even if the map says we're a signatory of the Vienna convention.

[@darwinqpenaflorida3797]

In a friendly Philippines(Indonesia's best friend) it was signatory and ratified since 1975 but Indonesia are still pending on ratification so no worries for us because Filipino motorists are welcome to drive in Indonesia roads because we are ASEAN and using driver license from the Philippines are welcome too so road signs in the Philippines and Indonesia are different but much similar too such as Clearview

[@Ritz1256]

That is indeed covered by the map, we are signatories but NOT ratifees which means that we can still slightly diverge from the Convention without consequences

[@FlyingTigress]

Many of us in the traffic engineering profession refer to the MUTCD like (pronounced) "Mutt-Seed." Image based signs are still preferred since there's a little lower level 9f distraction to road users, but, "word" signs have the advantage of being able to be used for special situations.

[@DAFPvnk]

in defence of the US, Australia and Canada - those countries (bar the US which has *one*) do not have international borders with non-native speaking languages that can easily be crossed. So having the majority language (i.e. English) written signs isn't as awful as it would be in say, Germany, which can easily be accessed by road by anyone in Europe. However European road signage is incredibly easy to read and understand in comparison. A simple glance at any European sign - even as someone who hasn't studied at all - is enough to understand the meaning (with a few exceptions, such as "no stopping"), whereas in the US system you have to read an entire sign before you necessarily understand the meaning. For example: A picture of a set of traffic lights, in a red triangle warns a driver of "Traffic lights ahead", whereas on a US system you would have to read a sign saying "TRAFFIC LIGHTS AHEAD" which takes more than a quick glance.

[@jukebox_heroperson3994]

@@pa28cfi Or arrows for upcoming turns

[@jaycee330]

One problem with Vienna signs is that (especially at high speed), they are smaller than the yellow diamonds, which makes them harder to read at a distance or speed.

[@LadislausKallig]

@@jaycee330 except simple bright pictures are easier to read from the distance than 2-3 lines of text. Even if they are a bit smaller. Also they aren't just random pictures, their colours are unified. So red signs prohibit something or tell about danger, blue signs give information, white signs give less important information and etc. It's really easy to recognise them even from the big distances.

[@Alias_Anybody]

It also makes it easier to differentiate actual rules from signs telling you distance and direction to place or city X. And ads. "Hire lawyer now" is just not as important as "road ends here".

[@T0MT0Mmmmy]

​​​@@jaycee330orry, but I think your signs are bigger just because they must display so much text. And the text has to be big for easy reading, whereas pictogramms don't need to be big. A red cross on a blue ground you could identify even when it's small, reading a small text is hard, and even harder when you're eyes are not the best.

[@Goatcha_M]

Australian road signs are a combination of the UK and US systems. We basically cherry picked the best sign for the job from both, and then added highway numbers which no-one understands or cares about because overseas people like them.

[@thestupidguy806]

i forgot we had numbers. the names make sense to me

[@davidty2006]

UK casually using european style signage whilst using the imperial system for speed and metric for weight. Yep.

[@Heroesrules1994]

Always annoying when google maps tells you to take state route x instead of just telling you the highway name.

[@a1white]

Same in Ireland. No consistent design language.

[@AussieBro-c6e]

tbh the only signs we use that are similar to Europe's are speed limit signs

[@lztx]

I know here in Australia (Queensland?) they tried the words based vs picture based for "No U turn at traffic signals unless signed" sign and the picture based one was more well received.

[@coover65]

Maybe we should use picture signs. The 'KEEP LEFT UNLESS OVERTAKING" signs get ignored, at least on the M1 between Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

[@lzh4950]

SIngapore meanwhile has a mix of both pictorial-based & more wordy signs e.g. a (blue) U-turn sign (otherwise U-turns are banned at traffic junctions by default) accompanied by a yellow sign "Vehicles not exceeding 2500kg in unladen weight"

[@Potkan007]

The European system using symbols makes much more sense. When traveling by car across the continent, every few hours you will arrive in a different country speaking a different language. Commonly used symbols are understood by all. In the US, people speak the same language (and suffer a bit from the "everyone must know English" + "no one will tell me what to do" complexes), so it's not a problem to verbally describe the meaning of road signs instead of symbols.

[@dubious6718]

Only half the population in the US can read English..

[@DrBernon]

But they could have both. Like the stop sign. A symbol and the text they love so much. But no...

[@deadpie1234]

​@@DrBernon almost all american signs are just a symbol with text on them, and we already have a ton of signs that are only symbols basically the only signs that are text alone are very obscure or temporary ones, or ones that have no real impact on safety

[@kablamo7599]

@@DrBernon its like half an half of which do and dont

[@AlexCaspian]

Back in the 1970s, the US tried to adapt their road signs to the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals guidelines, but this idea failed miserably. As a result, the United States is still full of road signs which may seem strange for people from European countries

[@Martin-wx8gd]

There is a mistake in the thumbnail. The one way sign should be square instead of circle. The circle means mandatory right turn.

[@Jabberwockybird]

Man, it would be so much easier to know that if they had only written the phrase on the sign.

[@ScottMStolz]

What's interesting is that Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Indonesian, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Liberia, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama, Peru, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Uruguay, and Vietnam all use signs based on the United States' MUTCD. So it is not just the U.S. that uses this style of signs. Many countries use at least some of the U.S. style designs.

[@lzh4950]

Taiwan/ROC uses Highway Gothic on its express/high/freeway signs but Helvetica on its city road signs, & the triangular white instead of yellow diamond warning signs

[@Imthefake]

i love the stock footage at 5:15

[@robertjarman3703]

It is quite noticable in anime too when all the signs are Vienna Convention type.

[@aliop5452]

3:40 I can't believe de didn't make a lame joke about that...

[@ryguy2006]

Japan is a weird hybrid, where most general regulatory signs follow the Vienna convention, while the warning signs follow loosely to the MUTCD. The stop sign, called 一時停止, is an downwards-pointed triangle reading 止まれ (lit. "Stop" as a command). And, most of the niche signs are written in Japanese. I guess, it's essential to be able to read a five-character Kanji compound while traveling at 80 km/h. Also, they have no Yield sign (if you want to stay kosher with how you use supplemental plaques...)

[@alanlight7740]

A few years back Japan started adding the English word "STOP" to their stop signs, in addition to "止まれ". The funny thing is that until 1963 they used the red octagon for a stop sign.

[@quackcement]

Japanese fire hydrant signs are the most unusual

[@williammerkel1410]

Geneva Convention and Japan are two things you typically don't associate with each other.

[@lzh4950]

Thought Yield/Give way signs in Japan were the inverted white triangular ones with a red border & the characters "徐行" inside

[@quackcement]

@@lzh4950 yes there's a few differences, but I actually found driving in japan very easy. it only seemed like a slight difference, drivers seemed alot more patient

[@pedroff_1]

Brazil's "no stop" sign is similar to the "no parking" (a white circle with red borders like the speed limits one, an E and a /), but, instead of a single slash, it has the red X

[@nicolasmfa]

And we have a mix of signs styles for different uses, exemple, the speed bump WARNING sing its yellow with a bump ilustration, as all the WARNING sings, while a PROHIBITED one like praking, its white with the red border and a ilustration or a word

[@maxbarko8717]

Even the form of important signs makes sense. You can identify them from the back or if covered by snow. Such as Stop, right,of way, yield.

[@AaronShenghao]

Although China didn’t sign the Vienna convention, their road sign is still mostly the same as ones from Vienna convention, not hard for recognize the signs with the same meaning. I actually think the Chinese system makes more sense. Red border is reserved for prohibitive signs like no parking, no entry etc. while warning signs have a black border. In EU it’s only the difference in shape differentiate between the two kind, they all have red borders. (But I argue in rainy conditions it might not be easy to tell a triangle from a circle at distance with rain water on the lens/windshield)

[@Ellestra]

In Poland they also have different background colour as the warning ones have yellow not white background. Still, it generally is easier to tell apart shapes so simple and different as circles and triangles than colors in bad weather conditions.

[@AlexCaspian]

The People's Republic of China (not Taiwan) and the United States are the only two permanent members of the United Nations Security Council that did not sign the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals.

[@raedwulf61]

The only sign I know that was changed to the international style is the "yield" one. Originally yellow with the word on it, it was changed to white with a red border with a small "yield" on it.

[@cornpowa]

It's a mix of both in my state.

[@lzh4950]

Meanwhile Japan's "slow down" (徐行) sign looks like the 'yield' sign

[@anthonyjackson280]

From Canada: I don't know about Europe but city street signs we have are variations on a theme No Stopping, No Parking, No Waiting. Any of them may be modified with time of day. not certain how thse nuances would be done pictographically.

[@domenicocor1185]

we use pictograms too (at least in italy) like no parking between 12:00 to 17:00 on working days is: 🚫with blue background, and smaller withe sign with: "12:00-17:00 ⚒️", if instead you cant park on holyday is a † You can use the smaller sign for indicating where it starts or end: /↓stops here ↑ 5km ↑ from here it continues for 5km

[@tevinvezina1766]

10th Amendment is what defends the State's power over the roads. SCOTUS ruled that NHTSA is allowed to pull Federal funding, as an exercise of the Spending Power that Congress holds, as long as the condition attached isn't coercive. For example, when they wanted States to raise the drinking age to 21, they threatened to pull 10% of Federal funding; since it was only 10% it was ruled as non-coercive. This is also known as a 'Congressional String'. Also, we Detroiters know Henry Ford didn't invent the car, he invented the moving assembly line!! 🚘

[@TheHylianBatman]

Signage is such an interesting topic, I hope we get a video on the signage on the highways! It has its own font and everything!

[@quinncampbell9255]

No one talked about costs with these stuff. In order to change the entire layout, either signs shapes or meters or feet switch. It would just cost so much money to change it to have little practical value.

[@t_luis]

In Brazil a lot of those signs look the same as in the US but there some changes, mainly because text signs are no that common here, text is more common for regulatory signs ("pare" is a notorious one) and directional signs (highways names, city names, toll booths, km indicator, etc.) but most of the rest are just images, this is good at least for foreign people and it will take down some regionalisms in what the sign mean. I grew up in the south of Brazil and most of the traffic lights are called "sinaleira", although in the southeast where I current live, it's called "semáforo".

[@VoIcanoman]

I actually like Canada's "no stopping" sign better than the Vienna Convention OR American system. It's image-based (so there's no language issues), and features a black octagon (obviously representing a stop sign) crossed out with a red slash, inside a red circle with a white background. It's easy to understand because a stop sign means stop (that's internationally-known), and to cross it out means you are not permitted to stop there. The sign is occasionally accompanied by the time periods of the week and day when stopping is not permitted*. It also has a correlate in the "no parking" sign, which is the same, but instead of an octagon, a big letter P is crossed out instead, but I think that one could be improved on (since to understand this, you need to know a bit of English). I always wondered what those big red x's on a blue background were when I visited Italy. Fortunately, I didn't get a ticket, but I legitimately could have. *For example, it might read 07:00 - 17:00 (yes, 24 hour time), and then Mon-Fri below the sign in black text. I'm not crazy about the Mon-Fri, because it requires a rudimentary understanding of English to comprehend, but the worst thing that could happen is a driver came on a weekend between 0700 and 1700 and didn't stop there, even though they could've. Misinterpretation of the sign due to language issues will not result in a fine, just minor inconvenience.

[@OntarioTrafficMan]

I'd generally prefer if Canadian signs were more in line with international signs but the Canadian No Stopping sign is one example which I think is better than the US or International one. My least favourite Canadian traffic sign is the speed limit sign. It is silly that we use such a similar sign to the US while we use km/h and they use mph.

[@ThePizzabrothersGaming]

The No stopping sign is a bit arbitrary but what's nice is that it's similar to the no parking sign. No parking is a single diagonal line so the no stopping sign is just a 'harsher' no parking sign

[@automation7295]

If you all were used to Vienna Convention signs, then I'm sure you know the difference between "no stopping" and "no parking" pretty quickly. I'm used to Vienna Convention signs, so I know "no stopping" are blue background with red X and "no parking" are blue background with red slash. I'm sure more European drivers are used to Vienna Convention signs

[@asantaraliner]

In Indonesia, we use the diamond yellow warning sign with images replacing the words. The no stopping sign uses a red circle and a line slashing the letter S. The same is use for no parking slashing the letter P.

[@TheTuttle99]

Wow an informative video with no crazy intro, no filler, and gets right into it? Subscribed in the first minute.

[@jordansean18]

To be fair, that draw bridge sign is really unintuitive ... "Draw bridge" hits the brain much quicker

[@danielbishop1863]

I think that one is perfectly intuitive. Some of the other Vienna signs (like "no passing") are not, though.

[@poisondog88]

I’m a US citizen, so I am a bit biased, but I like the system in place here, because it’s a different situation than Europe. In Europe, you can drive a few hours and be in a country speaking a different language, so having words on your signs there would be a nightmare to those who aren’t multilingual. In the US, you drive 24, 36 hours and you’re still in the US, and words can convey things a lot more clearly (most of the time) than images, which are more ambiguous. Additionally, the US has systems in place with sign shapes. School zones are the only pentagons, stop signs are the only octagons, and yield signs are the only triangles. Diamonds are warnings, and everything else is some form of rectangle. Red signs mean there’s some danger, white signs are for laws (as are red signs, but the white signs have less immediate danger involved), yellow signs are warnings or unusual conditions like curves in the road, blind hills and curves, trucks or animals crossing, or lanes ending. Orange signs are similar to yellow signs, but in construction zones; things like lanes shifting, a construction speed limit, or a road being closed. Pink signs are similar I think, but for weather or natural disasters. Green signs are navigation signs, blue signs are for services and attractions snd brown signs are for natural attractions (like a park, a lake, or a mountain summit).

[@Jehty_]

I didn't know that the US was monolingual. Silly me thought the US was a diverse country with people from all over the world visiting and migrating.

[@alpaqa]

@@Jehty_are you dense? what do you think is the percentage of US citizens/visitors that do not speak English?

[@Jehty_]

@@alpaqa well, 9% of the US population over 5 years have Limited English proficiency. Of course that doesn't mean that all of them aren't able to read a traffic sign, most of them probably are able to do that. But while driving a car at 70 mph isn't really the time to wonder what a word on a sign means. Especially since a sign might not provide any context clues.

[@jkwacker8225]

In Canada we seem to have just done whatever the US was to avoid any confusion. Road signs, driving on the right side of the road unlike the rest of the British world, etc.

[@brianbarker2551]

*cough* NAFTA *cough*

[@nobbynobbynoob]

Some Canadian Provinces ALWAYS had right-side traffic, while others - B.C. and the Maritimes - switched from left to right in the 1920s, as did British colonies such as Gibraltar (1929) and Newfoundland/Labrador (1947). The USVI conversely are a US territory with left-side traffic.

[@danielbishop1863]

Canada was also the first British dominion to use dollars and cents instead of pounds, shillings, and pence.

[@microcolonel]

TL;DR: most road signs were designed or popularized in America; and drivers are broadly literate and can recognize english words faster than abstract signals in most circumstances.

[@MrDopeKeen]

Here in Europe I wish some signs had words instead of pictures, because sometimes those drawings don't make any sense. Same with car buttons.

[@automation7295]

Just move to USA instead of complaining about European signs use symbols. Also some signs in Europe do use words on motorway signs, directional signs, stop signs and some temporary signs. Some European countries have text on one-way signs.

[@ToasterOven7]

0:42 the Rest of the worlds sign for keep left is a right pointing arrow. Clever...

[@velvetbutterfly]

They're typically pointed at the lane in question

[@velvetbutterfly]

Also remember the side people drive on is inverted

[@TheZett]

@@velvetbutterfly Nearly all of Europe drives on the same side as the Americans. Only the British, their former colonies and some asian countries drive on the left.

[@automation7295]

These blue circle with an arrow are called mandatory signs.

[@keco185]

I will say, the words "Draw bridge" would definitely take me less time to figure out than the associated pictogram

[@igorswies5913]

_brings out a pencil_ _starts drawing a bridge_

[@mardiffv.8775]

When on holiday in Germany look out for the word Zugbrücke. Oh wait, a pictogram is much easier.

[@keco185]

@@mardiffv.8775 in Eurasia pictograms make more sense because of diversity in language. In the US almost everyone knows enough English to understand what a bridge is.

[@mardiffv.8775]

@@keco185 True what you say, but I can see in flash a pictogram faster then written language. But Americans want to do things American, so Americans want to be different.

[@dmitripogosian5084]

What on earth does that mean ? If I saw such a sign, I would have to stop and google it. And I am from Canada

[@SK-zi3sr]

Australia uses the American ones, so it’s not true that only USA uses those. Although some we use both for example the speed signs we use both European and American styles. The American one we don’t use use the route + Number sign, Route 66 in an emblem. We don’t use that, but the stop symbol we use the American, and various others also do

[@SK-zi3sr]

We use a mix

[@SK-zi3sr]

Well u acknowledged later

[@AdamSmith-gs2dv]

Another thing that's different is directional signs. European signs focus alot more in cities while US signs focus more on the route number and the direction of travel. Also states can choose what cities to put on the directional signs and some them pick some really stupid stuff (NC signing Biltmore Estate/Hickory/Statesville on I40, PA religiously signing Hazelton on I81, Missouri signing Memphis in ST Louis but going to Cape Girardeau as soon as you leave, and the worst of all Colorado signing Limon on I70 even though Limon only has 2000 people)

[@Budymierdas]

Lim on these nuts

[@ooooneeee]

deepest road sign lore

[@danielbishop1863]

There's famously a distance sign on Interstate 10, just after you cross westwards over the Sabine River, that says: Beaumont 23 El Paso 857 It doesn't include the much larger cities of San Antonio and Houston, but makes a point to include *El Paso* just to brag about how big Texas is.

[@Kriss_L]

@@danielbishop1863 Yep, Texas is so big it is less than half the size of Alaska.

[@thomasrinschler6783]

There's KZbin channel called Control City Freak that analyzes the control cities of the various US Interstates. Limon and PA/NC signing are some of his biggest complaints.

[@regulusmuphrid4891]

In Mexico is the same, we pretty much just look at the other side of the river see wathever looks fine and try to immitate as best as possible without knowing wether that would work or not.

[@AlexCaspian]

Not all countries in the world have actually adopted using a mixed case on destination and guide road signs: some of them still write destinations in all caps

[@Labyrinth6000]

Why do I get the feeling that Half as Interesting is deep down, is seething with ANGER that the US refuses to “get with the rest” of the world? I kind of get that indirect feeling with his videos lately.

[@Labyrinth6000]

@hypertechcoffee yeah Sam thinks the US should be like Europe when the whole reason why the Us broke away with Europe was for freedom. In Europe you can be arrested for criticizing/offensive speech or for simply owning a firearm for self-defense. Never want my country to turn into Europe.

[@krashd]

Most Americans who travel the world feel like that after seeing other developed countries.

[@honorablechairman]

You need pictures in Europe because drivers speak many languages, but in countries where all drivers pretty much share the same language, worded signs make sense as you don't have to learn them (e.g., people familiar with Europe no stopping sign (who understand English) would understand the usa sign, whereas, people unfamiliar with the eu sign would have to guess what that symbol means)

[@stephenlee5929]

Seems fair, USA has hardly any immigration. Readings easy, no other alphabets exist.

[@tkralva.6668]

Except in the USA there is NO official language, so worded signs in one language, which is not an official language, makes no sense.

[@jaycee330]

@@stephenlee5929 Ahem...hardly any immigration? Have you seen our southern border lately? (Perhaps you mean LEGAL).

[@fr89k]

Actually you shouldn't need to guess. The symbols are extremely clear. Or at least clear enough that you can react properly to them.

[@realdragon]

Stop using different languages as the reason. Reading while you're driving is stupid idea in general

[@kevinpepperell1941]

Australia uses a similar road sign system to USA. All the big green signs on highways as well as the yellow warning signs meet the USA standard. Prior to conversion to metric speed limits in Australian, speed signs were the same as in the USA. When driving around USA I found road signs very familiar to the ones at home.

[@MrSharkFIN]

So basically Americans just can't understand images so they need to have written on the sign what it means.

[@CastorRabbit]

To be fair, those are some shitty images

[@Jurgensen1]

Essentially everyone in the US speaks the same language, so we can put words on our signs and rely less on pictograms, whereas europeans speak a bunch of different languages and thus pictograms are easier for everyone to understand. Or TL:DR: get of your high horse, jackass

[@MostlyPennyCat]

Americans can't understand anything that requires learning something. Like how to drive.

[@РомаПетров-ж1н]

They're just bad in standardizing. At least Northern are.

[@manne8575]

More like the rest of the world can't read, so they need images. Since images are typically easiert to understand than words.

[@craig.bryant]

You see these two systems clash on the island of Ireland. Northern Ireland 🇬🇧 has British signage which, unlike how the UK likes to Brexit, is very European and perhaps has the clearest signage in the world (just read about our lower case font, everyone needs to copy it)! In the Republic 🇮🇪 due to something called politics (The Troubles) there’s no border so the only thing that changes are the road signs and markings. Ireland has gone for the US standard yellow diamond for warning signs not a red triangle, but it’s definitely less text based than the US.

[@overworlder]

Australia has US-style road signs except speed limits, which are Euro-style, from the shift to metric in the 70s.

[@jairuz3876]

What I noticed as someone living in the Philippines is that we have signs that are similar to the US. Like these signs from 0:32 to 0:43

[@AlexCaspian]

Except for the warning signs which are triangular and red bordered in the Philippines, like in European countries

[@yoranw4608]

*It is a pretty controversial issue.* I think American signs are easier to get, because its written and therefore, there are no excuses for not knowing it. Wordwide signs elsewhere are not completely uniform, as you’ve pointed. I’ve lived a long time in Brazil and their no parking sign is a black *E* surrounded by a red circle with white background color and a simple red line crossing the E. Anywhere in the country. Also, in europe, a lot of places use the word STOP(written in English) to make clear you’ve got to stop. No matter the local language. Eventually America could adopt some symbols? Yes, sure. But some things are better written off to make clear that nobody can pretend they mistakenly misunderstood it.

[@dennispommes100]

Laughs in different language

[@miguelpadeiro762]

The Pictograms are very straightforward and if you pass through driving school there's really no excuse for you not knowing them We actually, at least here in Portugal, even learn the basics of road signs in elementary school There's a colloquial spelling for stop here in Portugal Se Tens Olhos Para If you have eyes stop I could see written signs being mistakenly understood as well, "I was driving and I misread what was written in it". But failing to identify picture signs means you're actually not fit to drive at all, and don't really have an excuse to say "I mixed up the signs" if you do something bad

[@Laluan]

Stop is the same word in many different languages. I think it doesn’t even originate from English.

[@ryanstill6610]

The main thing I got from this video is that it's only NASA and the US department of defence that makes good abbreviations

[@marklaw5116]

When I drove in the US, the sign that unexpectedly gave me consternation was “Right lane ends in 1000 feet.” Now, I’m from the UK, and I can use both imperial and metric units for distance quite well. But…. When it’s that kind of length, WHY ARE YOU USING FEET? It should be written in YARDS!! Or maybe fractions of a mile. But feet? I have no instinctual concept of how long 1000ft is. It’s like saying something will last 1000 seconds; you can work out how long that will be in minutes or hours if you think about it, but you can’t grasp the length instinctually. I know it’s not that hard to convert to yards (333.3yds) but I was trying to convert it while travelling at 75mph with about three-quarters of my brain screaming “Wait, does that mean I’ve got a good amount of time to find a gap in traffic and move over, or am I going to crash before I can even finish this thought?”

[@ajs41]

Same sort of thing as the way they use pounds to say how heavy a person is.

[@marklaw5116]

@@ajs41 Yup. In fact they’ll measure anything in pounds, even things like trucks or planes. As if I have any notion of how heavy 400,000lbs is 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@krashd]

@@marklaw5116 I've seen them occasionally use Statue-of-Liberty-on-it's-side and Football Fields to measure distances like that, you'd think they would have used one of those.

[@garyholt8315]

my canadian city has many signs saying .3km and I thought 300 m would be more sensible

[@jimzecca3961]

As an American, outside of football fields and a few other commerce areas, the yard is a unit of measure that has low usage compared to the foot which we use a lot. Most highways will list an exit in one mile (60 seconds), then maybe a half mile (30 seconds) and then after that it's usually 1000 (15 seconds) or 500 (10 seconds) feet if they need a sign. Feet are more granular compared to a mile so I think they are meant to alert you that you are getting close. [Note: obviously my time approximations would vary based on your speed.]

[@sackofclams953]

I prefer signs that have both a clear symbol and clear words. It covers all your bases since people may perceive symbols differently

[@deepderp8483]

That's why we actually learn those "symbols" and many other useful things for 6-12 months before we get our drive license.

[@wta1518]

@@deepderp8483 Same in the US.

[@MrHaakon34]

I feel that if you have to use 50% of the area to specify that you are taking about "SPEED LIMIT", then you have failed designing your sign.

[@wta1518]

@@MrHaakon34 Why? The number is still perfectly legible.

[@AlexandPedro]

@@wta1518 It's because of the cost of materials added for the words "Speed Limit." Multiply that to millions of signs and you can see the costs add up a lot.

[@frtzkng]

Short: two standards developed side by side, each fit best for their circumstances. The US as a really large country with one widely spoken language can afford to use text-based signs. Europe has lots of different languages which aren't mutually intelligible in a relatively small place; so do many other parts of the world. Hence, pictogram-based signs make more sense. A sign saying "Speed Limit" is very easily understandable and unambiguous if you know what "Speed Limit" means. If you encounter lots of languages you do not speak, it is easier to make one unified symbol which means "speed limit" regardless of language- in this case the red ring with the posted speed limit in it. Saying one is better than the other without considering their context is as pointless as saying an airplane is better than a car without considering where to go.

[@Illumisepoolist]

Yeah the Stop sign is just too iconic to us Americans. Being the main reference for an Octagon. 🛑

[@xdn22]

EU also uses the octagon

[@BrennanZeigler]

Japan’s road signs look almost identical to ours as well, and the reason for that was because after World War II, the US temporally occupied Japan as part of a transitional government to transition Japan into a democracy after their surrender in World War II. During that time, the US brought a lot of things with them, including road signs. After the occupation, then Japan designed their own road signs based on those in the US. Only their stop sign is unique to Japan but they actually used the standard octagonal stop sign until the 1970s and there’s actually been talk about them bringing it back

[@TransitAndTeslas]

I love the pronunciations of those acronyms

[@albertbatfinder5240]

The No Stopping sign at the start of the video intrigued me when I first saw it in real life. The look was familiar through movies and TV shows, but I had no idea what it meant. The fact that it was everywhere, not just near rail crossings, drawbridges, roadworks or whatever, meant there was no context to interpret it.

[@velvetbutterfly]

If only there was a sign in the real world in your country that appeared everywhere a car could go with a uniform design

[@albertbatfinder5240]

@@velvetbutterfly not sure what you mean. I am Australian and we don’t have the blue circle, red border, red cross sign. First time I drove in Europe 40 years ago, the sign didn’t register to me as having any discernible meaning, even though it was familiar. It’s basically uninterpretable. I can’t think of a sign with less intrinsic meaning. All other Vienna Convention, North American, South American, Asian and African signs are could work out. To this day, I don’t know how they settled on blue and red, let alone the circle. The cross, admittedly is obvious. Why not just the cross?

[@danielbishop1863]

@@albertbatfinder5240 : Yeah. Text-based signage does require drivers to know English, but if you do, it's totally obvious what "no stopping" or "do not pass" means. If this video hadn't explained it, I'd *never* intuit the Vienna "no stopping" sign. I'd assume that the big red X indicates a prohibition on something, but *what*?

[@jakubadamczyk1523]

@@albertbatfinder5240 Do you have a better idea for "no stopping" sign? So... There's also someting like ✨no layover ✨represented by one "diagonal" line. So there's an idea: No stopping has these lines: X when no layover has this: /

[@albertbatfinder5240]

@@jakubadamczyk1523 really, I cannot. I can think of any number of equally meaningless signs for No Stopping, so it makes me wonder how they all agreed on the existing one. One thing we can all agree on is that the red octagon, white border, white text with the word STOP in it (whatever language it’s written in) is probably one of the most universally recognised signs. So perhaps 🤔 a red octagon, white border, white diagonal (the universal “do not” symbol) might do the trick. Maybe with a little car in it. You wouldn’t want to detract from the effectiveness of the stop sign as it appears now, but it’s all I can think of. Your idea of the X and the / is good. Maybe just put it in an octagon, so there’s just a slight subconscious link back to the STOP sign, but not make it red? We have No Stopping, No Standing, and No Parking as three different levels of prohibition, so maybe there’s room for one, two or three slashes?

[@mattikaki]

Here in Europe we think that the American people can’t undestand visual signs and they need it in written form. I personally think that those written ones were a pain to read when I was driving in US and Canada. The European style is very good because you can just take a glance and you know what it means.

[@meliksahgulmez9664]

Pair the text based signs with driving approximately 70 km/h, PLUS the sign being smaller.

[@TheUnrealPirate]

As an American I find the image based signs strange and confusing, plenty of signs I don't see every day so having them written down makes more sense to me as opposed to needing to figure out a symbol when I'm driving somewhere unfamiliar. Ironic I guess, but maybe you just get used to the signs where you grow up

[@eriottomakurashi]

Must be an skill of those americans

[@lngvly22]

As an American, I could probably figure it out, but written ones are so much easier. If you are a native English speaker you can read it fast enough to understand. You also can encounter a sign you’ve never seen before and understand its meaning, as opposed to having to memorize each sign’s purpose .

[@Why-D]

The human learns through errors. The clever human learns through errors of others. But some may not want to learn anything.

[@thegreatken2073]

This video is so US centric and I love it

[@bradzeigler]

It’s important to remember that by the time the UN standardized a symbology sign system, the US system was fully established across 48 states for multiple decades. Europe was still rebuilding in the 50s. Considering the U.S was much less language diverse than Europe, and non-English immigrants were expected to assimilate by learning English, it made sense to keep the English worded signs. So the short answer is adopting the UN standard didn’t make sense from a safety perspective or a cost perspective. And as the video noted, Americans at the time were not big on adoption of European standards simply for the sake of being standardized. I remember my WW2 vet grandfather used to admonish me fas a young kid in the early 80s for adding a horizontal line on sevens when wrote them on paper. Too German he said, which was funny, considering we are of German ancestry. It was simply the culture of the time.

[@alanlight7740]

On the other hand I learned to cross my 7s and Zs in the military. But then I was Signal Corp., so that may have played a role. The military has long adopted different standards from civilians for ease of communication and the like.

[@Jabberwockybird]

"The military has adopted different standards..." Yes, but being quick to adopt new standards has ultimately lead to the military's downfall now that it is "woke" and it can't get recruits.