13 signs in SE4 (Geoffrey Road/Wickham Road area) and SE14 (Kitto Road/Drakefell Road area) have been converted today into legal British units on ARM's third venture into the Borough.

On one lamp-post there were two triangular signs, one immediately beneath the other, saying:

Top one: 'Humps (arrow, left), 450 yards'
Bottom one: 'Humps (arrow, right), 300m'

A photograph of this bizarre set of signs was taken and will be forwarded to BWMA and the Forum Owner.

Several signs were seen giving a road width restriction of '2.13 m' (7 feet exactly in plain English). This is illegal on two separate counts:

1 - All height signs must be in Iperial - metric is only an optional extra

2 - Metric signs may only give the height to one decimal place

Tony Bennett

Maximum Vehicle Width and length restriction signs are allowed to be in metric only.

TSRGD 1994 diagrams, 629, 629.1 refer. Schedule 16 item 2 is listed as a permitted variant for these signs which says:

"Metric units to one decimal place of a metre may be substituted for imperial units."

CORRECTION TO PIP:

Schedule 16 item 1 applies to Diagram 629 (road width restriction), to Diagram 629.1 (maximum length of vehicle permitted), and to Diagram 629.2 (height restrictions). It states that "Numerals may be varied...[including to] one decimal place of a metre".

Schedule 16 item 2 applies just to Diagrams 629 and 629.1 and states: "Metric units to one decimal place of a metre may be substituted for imperial units"

[I will concede at this point that the language of the Regulations here is highly misleading and may well have innocently misled officials trying to do their honest best to interpret the Regulations. The word 'substituted' is so misleading as to give rise to the question: 'was that word chosen deliberately to mislead?' As you will see from what follows, the words should be: "Metric units to one decimal place may optionally be added to ones in imperial" ].

If you look at Diagrams 629, 629.1 and 629.2, you are referred to the very important Direction 35 (at the back of the Regulations). This states:

"Where the indication given by a sign shown in [various diagrams] is varied in accordance with...Schedule 16, that sign may be placed *only in combination with another sign of the same type whose indication has not been so varied* [i.e. one in imperial]".

This bureaucratic langauge may be summarised, so far as height and width restrictions are concerned, as:

Imperial signs are compulsory;
Metric signs are optional.

(In addition, only height signs may shown with Imperial and metric units on the same sign; that is not permitted on width restriction signs. But two units on one sign confuses motorists. A survey by ARM of width and height signs (currently incomplete) shows that over 96% of all height signs are in Imperial only and over 99% of width signs are in Imperial only).

As a postscript, I would point out that every unncessary metric sign erected in accordance with Schedule 16 items 1 and 2 takes money away from other more important items of expenditure.


Tony Bennett

The above entry (Tony Bennett's) is correct.

I concede that direction 35 makes it clear that a metric sign must coexist with an imperial one, and that the way this is indicated is potentially misleading.

Taking diagram 629 etc in conjunction with item 2 one would not suspect that any of the directions deal specifically with this aspect of the signs, given that such is usually dealt with in the illustrations, e.g. diagram 530 for maximum headroom warnings, where it actually shows two signs.

I agree that item 2 should be re-worded but not in the way you suggest. It would be better to include a warning note drawing attention to direction 35 or maybe expand the wording of item 2 to state the requirement more explicitly, thus direction 35 would be unnecessary. Better still add the extra diagrams like in 530, then the variant can be the same i.e. metric sign may be ommitted etc.

I also agree that combination signs like 629.2A are not a very good way to show metric supplements. Why on Earth they specify this for height only doesn't make any sense to me either.

Franky the present regulations are a bit of a mess. Take for example diagram 780.1 showing the maximum safe height for vehicles at crossings with overhead cables, including a distance indication. The rules say that the height can be in metres but the distance has to be in yards only!

However with the present and developing situation in Britain I would advocate that so long as the Government still insist on imperial indications it would be better to show metric supplementary signs as standard, that way all drivers are catered for. In fact diagram 530 implies just that, because the imperial only sign is a variant.

I would point out here that where a non-compliant metric only sign exists, the proper way to correct it would be to add an imperial one, not deface or remove the existing one.