# incomprehensible road signs



## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

For a long time I thought a road sign I saw regularly in the French part of Belgium (Wallonia) would never be surpassed in incomprehensibility. At many T-junctions we saw road signs saying for 'Toutes directions' (all directions) go left and for 'Autres directions' (other directions) go right. (or the opposite of course at other junctions).

Now a road sign has been spotted in The Netherlands that is maybe even more incomprehensible. It looks like this:










The upper sign seems to tell you it's forbidden for tractors, bicycles and motor cycles to continue on this road. The lower sign says: with the exception of tractors, bicycles and motor cycles AND transportation of the disabled.

Now as you probably would have guessed this combinations of signs in fact means: everybody can carry on but it's forbidden for riders on horseback!

No joke, this is the legal meaning. That is because the icons do not only stand for what they depict but for a broader category of traffic participants.


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

standrd Oz Road sign but strange to some in other parts of the world


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)




----------



## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

I hope I don't come across one of these:


----------



## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

Tristan said:


> I hope I don't come across one of these:


They missed the edit window on that one.


----------



## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Tristan said:


> I hope I don't come across one of these:


What the hell does that mean???


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Casebearer said:


> What the hell does that mean???


Could be political at the border?


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Casebearer said:


> For a long time I thought a road sign I saw regularly in the French part of Belgium (Wallonia) would never be surpassed in incomprehensibility. At many T-junctions we saw road signs saying for 'Toutes directions' (all directions) go left and for 'Autres directions' (other directions) go right. (or the opposite of course at other junctions).
> 
> Now a road sign has been spotted in The Netherlands that is maybe even more incomprehensible. It looks like this:
> 
> ...


That is a cattle guard at that point on the road, correct? - a grating that makes it very uncomfortable for cattle to use the roadway to escape their enclosure. It would be similarly uncomfortable for horses, so perhaps that explains part of the meaning?

Anyway, at the entrance to a private reserve in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, one sees this sign:









Okay, it's not incomprehensible. Not all of it. And I photoshopped in the nasty bits; It didn't really say plebian scum.


----------



## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

EdwardBast said:


> That is a cattle guard at that point on the road, correct? - a grating that makes it very uncomfortable for cattle to use the roadway to escape their enclosure. It would be similarly uncomfortable for horses, so perhaps that explains part of the meaning?
> 
> Anyway, at the entrance to a private reserve in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, one sees this sign:
> 
> ...


Yes, correct. It's the entrance to a nature reserve with cattle to do the nature preservation. I'm astonished you got that!
It makes all the references to tractors, motor cycles, bicycles and handicapped even less understandable.


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Casebearer said:


> Yes, correct. It's the entrance to a nature reserve with cattle to do the nature preservation. I'm astonished you got that!
> It makes all the references to tractors, motor cycles, bicycles and handicapped even less understandable.


I've traveled a bit in the American Southwest, where those cattle guards are pretty common on rural roads.

Could the upper sign be a caution sign to alert those on bicycles and motorcycles that the grating might cause their wheels to slip or catch, and a different kind of warning to tractors?


----------



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

View attachment 95174


View attachment 95175

.................................


----------



## Vronsky (Jan 5, 2015)




----------



## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

EdwardBast said:


> I've traveled a bit in the American Southwest, where those cattle guards are pretty common on rural roads.
> 
> Could the upper sign be a caution sign to alert those on bicycles and motorcycles that the grating might cause their wheels to slip or catch, and a different kind of warning to tractors?


No, not as far as I know. It's just meant to mean forbidden for riders on horseback. The municipality explained that they could not simply put a sign up that indicates just that because a sign like that is no longer part of our nations catalogue of road signs, so it would have no legal status.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)




----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Meanwhile, in Australia


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Meanwhile, in Australia


Almost as bad as the outback toilet rest stops


----------



## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

KenOC said:


>


Presumably this is in some benighted foreign place where proper use of the subjunctive (if I were you...) is extinct?


----------



## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

Pat Fairlea said:


> Presumably this is in some benighted foreign place where proper use of the subjunctive (if I were you...) is extinct?


The subjunctive sounds rather old-fashioned to me. I usually don't use it in English. I save my subjunctives for my (pathetic) attempts at speaking French, German and Spanish! :lol:


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)




----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)




----------



## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Oz certainly seems to be cornering the market in entertaining signs, Ed. :lol:


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)




----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

elgars ghost said:


> Oz certainly seems to be cornering the market in entertaining signs, Ed. :lol:


Yep, particularly in the outback as their is not much to do - my fav is the "Don't drive like a W anchor" sign :lol:


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)




----------



## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Bettina said:


> The subjunctive sounds rather old-fashioned to me. I usually don't use it in English. I save my subjunctives for my (pathetic) attempts at speaking French, German and Spanish! :lol:


Would that more people used the subjunctive and that it were not seen as old-fashioned.

I'm a bit fixated on apostrophe's as well.


----------



## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

"Does also count for other colours"


----------

