Billboards, business signs, school zone signs, street-name signs, for-sale signs, vote-for-me signs, no-dumping-here signs — speed zone ahead, speed limit, pavement narrows, open trench, caution, intersection ahead, right turn only, no stopping or standing, stop! — when are there too many signs?
 
England uses far less traffic signs than America and they use more on-road indicators, under the assumption that it is safer to keep your eyes on the road, or so says John Staddon in a recent article, Your Divided Attention, printed in the Dallas Morning News. "I began to think that the American system of traffic control, with its many signs and stops, and with its specific rules tailored to every bend in the road, has had the unintended consequence of causing more accidents than it prevents."
 

Left to right: (a) the buildings and urban edge of a street help to form the place; (b) the kerb line can be used to reinforce this; and (c) the remaining carriageway space is tracked for movement and for the provision of places where people may park their vehicles. Source: Manual for Streets (U.K.)

Refuge islands can be used at mid-block locations, channelized right turns, or at long intersection crossings. Source: ITE's Context Sensitive Solutions in Designing Major Urban Thoroughfares for Walkable Communities and Kimley-Horn and Associates Inc.

The gateway to a neighboring city has signs lining both sides of a four-lane, divided, no-access road. Except for the missing shoulders, this road could be any 70-mph stretch of roadway in America yet it is posted as only 40 mph. Unfortunately, the speed limit sign is behind the tree on the right. Only by not paying attention to the roadway and other signs would a driver have a chance of spotting it.

With less signs, he says, "Detailed statistics show that as of 2003, fatalities per mile traveled were 36 percent greater in the U.S. than they were in the U.K."
 
He continues, "Attending to a sign competes with attending to the road. The more you look for signs, for police and at your speedometer, the less attentive you will be to traffic conditions."
 
Mr Staddon observes, "What matters most for road safety? The quality of the roads themselves? The engineering of the cars that travel them? The speed limit? The answer may be 'none of the above.'"
 
Not an engineer, instead Mr Staddon says he has studied adaptive behavior his whole professional life, and it is from that perspective that he offers his observations on safety and distractions.
 
However, what would a U.K. traffic engineer say? The Manual for Streets, prepared for the Department of Transport and Communities and Local Government, advocates emphasis on the geometric design, rather than the speed zones and stop signs we use. Studies found two primary factors influenced speeds: forward visibility and street width. The more forward visibility, the more a driver feels comfortable increasing his speed. Similarly, wide streets also invite faster driving. Now consider many of our neighborhood streets that are wide and straight and that draw complaints that people are driving too fast. It's only natural. Then set houses and other structures further from the street and remove on-street parking. Speeding gets much worse. It's an inefficient use of land and it brings tons of headaches.
 
On signing, the manual advises caution: "Some streets feature few, or no, signs or markings. This may be appropriate in lightly-trafficked environments. It reduces sign clutter and the relative lack of signing may encourage lower vehicle speeds." Later, "It is not appropriate to use smaller signs simply because the sign is informative rather than a warning or regulatory sign. If the sign is necessary, motorists need to be able to read it; signs are most effective when not used to excess. Designers should ensure that each sign is necessary."
 
Checking "Down Under," emerging guidelines are similar. In a publication of the Western Australian Planning Commission and the Department for Planning and Infrastructure, Livable Neighbourhoods, an objective of street design includes: "to enable roads and verges to perform their designated functions in the street network, recognising that streetscapes that are too wide encourage higher vehicle speeds; and to provide street geometry which is safe and appropriate to the street function."
 
Progress is being made in this country, too. The Institute of Transportation Engineers has prepared Context Sensitive Solutions in Designing Major Urban Thoroughfares for Walkable Communities. CSS is "a process of balancing the competing needs of many stakeholders starting in the earliest stages of project development. It is also flexibility in the application of design controls, guidelines and standards to design a facility that is safe for all users regardless of the mode of travel they choose."
 
CSS brings stakeholders and affected parties into the design process early. When the Texas Department of Transportation started to design a new freeway along I-30 near downtown Fort Worth, CSS was used and resulted in the freeway being located further south, re-opening the old post office and other historic structures to downtown. The raised deck that was removed allowed the re-creation of Lancaster Ave, which is enjoying new development that would never have faced a freeway.
 
It is encouraging that American engineers and designers are working to build public streets that address the needs of users, but still missing are those basic observations from England and Australia about the importance of the geometric design. There are many good American design guidelines coming forward but it seems the street cross section has greater influence than the grid design.
 
American designers look to continue channeling you through town from A to B, while the English and Australian models empower you to guide yourself through.
 
The final point: we can do a much better job designing streets than we have in recent decades, whichever of the models above we choose to follow. Neighborhood streets deserve much more attention to provide safer travel for cars, bicycles, and pedestrians.
 
One way to spot the signs that we are improving our streets may be when we see less signs and more attention directed to the road.