I've driven nearly 700,000 miles in and around London (average journey 5 miles ) and have no interest in the mechanics of it. Haven't the slightest idea how to change a tyre, for example but the banter between the original 3 was, sometimes, great as were their locations.
Hello mate. The only time I ever get embarrassed is over bad manners or if something I have done has, unintentionally, negatively impacted others. :) When I was 10 at Primary School they asked me to make a Plane from Balsa Wood and after 1/2 hour I gave the Plane back in the same condition it was originally in. By 12 at end of year Grammar School Exams, I got 0% at Woodwork AND Technical Drawing, arguably, my finest achievements to date. haha Since then I have known I am practically and technically useless and can not even mend a plug but, luckily, I know " a man who can" in return for favours I do them. Good Luck.
This was interesting to see a face behind the design of our road signs. We take things for granted & forget all the work others have put in, to design our world around us! .. A couple of British firsts on this subject, invented by us are firstly traffic lights, albeit they worked using gas in victorian times. They didn't last long, for fear of them exploding & later, we took on board the American electric version. Secondly, cats eyes in the middle of the road & different coloured ones, when coming off a slip road on to the motorway etc.. What would driving at night be like without them? I'm sure cats eyes have saved many lives! Two inventions now used worldwide! 👍🇬🇧
11:23 Strictly speaking that sign is not lanes merging. It actually means the road is narrowing, which ever side the crooked line is on is the side it narrows on, It can be both sides with two crooked lines. The sign you are describing as merging looks like two lines that merge into one from the bottom to the top, making a fork. I think the highway code refers to it as end of dual carriageway.
Couple of things, the font is called 'transport' and the 'merge' sign is a road narrows ahead on left-hand side - this is used for narrow lanes, work sites and traffic calming build-outs. There's also the equivalent right-hand side and road narrows on both sides, you often see these as you're approaching narrow village centres with structures adjacent to the road.
Go into Wales you have Welsh and English on the same road sign ,with Welsh on top and English below , which is almost impossible read before you’ve driven past them ,but I do love the quirkiness of them .
That will be 12 then 12a as 12a was built later , just like house numbers really, if you build an extra house on a street it usually has the same number as next door but with an "a" after it
Serifs help the eye keep the line in a dense block of text in a book hence it makes reading easier. But for a few lines on signs they do make the letter shapes similar and harder to read at speed.
I use to make the signs for the motorway when the orders came in. i was on nightshift and i got the letters totally wrong as i had some of them upside down . i was not thinking what i was doing i cut the metal from the guillotine,cleaned the metal and used the machine to set out the letters . why i got it wrong but i made a few of them the gaffer came to work in the morning saw what i had done was was totally going ape on me. I was a young chappie at the time ,i took it and had to move on and learn from the mistake as it expensive to make due to having to put a large oven on to bake the paint onto the metal .
With regard to the sign you mentioned - it's because that road sign simply does mean road narrowing (on left) not merging. The traffic merging sign is altogether different.
@@ThePostmodernFamily Well I obviously I can't comment on where it's positioned near where you live, I just know that the 'bottleneck' sign you referred to means road narrowing not merging which is a thick arrow with a smaller one joining it. Keep up the great videos! C
She also designed the Rail Alphabet font used on the railways and helped come up with airport signage including the now very common black on yellow combination and many symbols.
On the M25-M26 junction the right hand lanes take you onto the M26 but you have to turn onto the slip road for the M25 😂 makes it easier to get into my beautiful county of Kent
As I understand it you are interested in the history of Britain. This being the case I would suggest that you look at this. This will give you and insight into the crusade that the British had against slavery. Just as a taster slavery was outlawed in England in 1066 or there about's. If this link does not work; type in - The British Crusade Against Slavery by Sargon of Akkad I have just watched another American react to this and to say he was surprised is an understatement. He even apologised for his previous comments.
US signs seem to show where you are, UK where to go. Like from Birmingham sign will say London 112. US you suddenly arrive and have to change lane quick.
The slow lane only becomes an exit lane in the UK when there's no alternative. If it can be avoided it usually is. But sometimes everything is so squashed together because of old buildings, old roads, etc, that there's no other option. On motorways the slow lane hardly ever becomes an exit, it's mainly on minor roads.
Take a trip through Glasgow on the M8 and you’ll find the fast lane AND slow lanes both become exits, on the same stretch of motorway. I think Around J15/16. They take you to two completely different parts of town. If, at rush hour, you realise at the last minute you’re in the wrong exit lane you have to cross two lanes of almost stationary traffic to get to the other exit.
My question for the Sign lady would be, why is the national speed limit sign just a black line through a signpost, why not just put the MPH on the sign? Would be alot safer and easier for people not from the UK to read
The national speed limit is the standard speed for that type of road meaning 60mph for single roads and 70mph for dual carriageway or motorway. Should the government ever decide to change what the national speed limit is (ie reduce single lane traffic to 50mph nationwide) then the sign would still apply.
Since you have done a video on James May, you may like to try "Ox and Jamesig Wine Adventure".A good series where wine expert Oz Clarke tries to educate James in all things wine.
I love driving and have had some amazing cars. However, what happens under the bonnet is left to my trusty mechanics. I loved Top Gear. Have it all on DVD's. The humour is 2nd to none. They took on some hillarious challenges.
If you’re on a motorway in Spain you have to keep your wits about you even more so as often the near side lanes will take you off the main route but I do prefer that exits are marked in kilometres rather than just a number- apart from that they seem very similar to U.K. signs.
Thanks for the video Lilian and Felipe. If the car James was driving was new, then this film was made around 2009 (his reg plate). I can understand why our signage had to be updated - those white signs must have been very difficult to read whilst driving - I do remember them, though not as a driver. Green signs are for primary roads and blue signs are motorways. I'm leaving a link here of Top Gear when James May, Richard Hammond and Jeremy Clarkson presented the show. In this clip Richard, who adores fast cars, was hypnotised to forget how to drive a car; the result is really funny. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-U1nAb6t7jp8.html
You can buy a ‘know your road signs’ from the ministry of transport to learn the signs and the history. Also it’s not technically sans serif it’s a specially designed typeface for the signs
Definitely consider going down a bit of a Top Gear rabbit hole. It's been on TV for decades, but has gone through some changes (for good and bad), It was always somewhat popular at least with motorists in the 80's and 90's, but it received a massive revamp in the early 00's. Though it still did reviews (like in this clip) it began to widen it's scope into comedy...basically three middle aged men doing stupid things usually linked to cars, but more broadly at times the internal combustion engine. That's a simplified explanation, but the stunts and humour is why it gained massive worldwide appeal. Since you're Americans, and shall we say are somewhat critical of PC/Woke culture, I think you two would appreciate their humour... I suggest this clip for starters ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pKcJ-0bAHB4.html They _decorate_ each others cars in the most offensive ways they can think of to drive through Alabama. Note - I've seen another creator react to it and they had to cut their reaction down because it was blocked, so be aware of that.
Top gear and now The Grand Tour, is all about the specials. Watch the specials on Netflix. The Vietnam, middle east, polar specials were brilliant. The American road trip was fun too. The Botswana and Bolivia ones were just too scary. Keep in mind the specials used to sir during the Christmas holidays so for many of us they were a family event.
I think they went sans serif because the serifs would not really show up clearly at a distance. All signs are read at distance. Upper and lower case are also a better way to get the signs read. The whole system we use in the UK is the continental road sign system and was brought in to speed up traffic efficiently. Prior to the introduction of the single universal system road directions was often only posted at the actual cross roads for example. This meant stopping at every junction to read the sign or risk overshooting your turn off.
Of all the Top gear clips to choose this one was somewhat random, lol. Hopefully you can do more from Top gear. The episode where they each drove a popstar (and radio DJ Chris Moyles) to the BRIT Awards in modified cars was a good one, but there are many other great episodes to watch. You can't reallly go wrong.
