Signs Of Frustration
18/12/06 23:53 Filed in: General
Nonsense
I have been
doing a lot of driving recently, as is the case every
December. In the last month or so, I have been to
almost every extremity of the country, travelling on
motorways, N roads, R roads and letterless roads.
The one thing I find really frustrating about driving around Ireland (apart from the shit roads) is the general shittiness of road signage. For example:
- Following signs for a place through several crossroads, junctions, etc., only to get to a T-junction with no sign. You obviously have to guess from that point on.
- Crawling around Tralee looking for the road to Limerick/Dublin, only to eventually discover that you are supposed to follow the signs for Killarney, the road for which branches off the main Limerick/Dublin road.
- Seeing a distance sign like the one at the cross in Ferns, which puts Enniscorthy at 18km away; and then seeing another one less than a km further on, which puts Enniscorthy at only 12km away.
- Falling victim to the rural sport of sign turning, where a sign is rotated 180 degrees on its post. Just for the craic, like.
- The continuing presence of distance signs in miles, at least 25 years after the decision was made to convert the whole lot to kilometres.
- Signs sited behind big trees, invisible in summer when the tree is in full leaf.
- Different spellings for the same placename.
- The N15 going north, which has several signs for Lifford, but hardly any for Letterkenny.
- Several signs mounted on the one post, all at the same level. The one you want to see is the most likely to be obscured by one in front.
- A mixture of official roadsigns, signs for tourist attractions, and even signs for private businesses sharing the same signpost.
I'd reckon this one here sums it all up:
The one thing I find really frustrating about driving around Ireland (apart from the shit roads) is the general shittiness of road signage. For example:
- Following signs for a place through several crossroads, junctions, etc., only to get to a T-junction with no sign. You obviously have to guess from that point on.
- Crawling around Tralee looking for the road to Limerick/Dublin, only to eventually discover that you are supposed to follow the signs for Killarney, the road for which branches off the main Limerick/Dublin road.
- Seeing a distance sign like the one at the cross in Ferns, which puts Enniscorthy at 18km away; and then seeing another one less than a km further on, which puts Enniscorthy at only 12km away.
- Falling victim to the rural sport of sign turning, where a sign is rotated 180 degrees on its post. Just for the craic, like.
- The continuing presence of distance signs in miles, at least 25 years after the decision was made to convert the whole lot to kilometres.
- Signs sited behind big trees, invisible in summer when the tree is in full leaf.
- Different spellings for the same placename.
- The N15 going north, which has several signs for Lifford, but hardly any for Letterkenny.
- Several signs mounted on the one post, all at the same level. The one you want to see is the most likely to be obscured by one in front.
- A mixture of official roadsigns, signs for tourist attractions, and even signs for private businesses sharing the same signpost.
I'd reckon this one here sums it all up:
