Comments on: Signs review disregards Welsh road users

By: Gareth

Gareth — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 20:47:11 +0000

@Ezra Steinberg

Clearly you’ve been living over that side of the pond for way too long (if you’ve ever lived eslewhere anyway). The vast majoirty of Welsh people are not racist against the English or everything ‘English’ (which is an American term for imperial anyway). England & Wales wouldn’t be in union otherwise.

Seriously, Edward I? How long ago was that? Tryweryn, whether the right thing to do or not, had nothing to do with silly American views of English oppression over simple Welsh folk, though the insignificant minority or more extreme nationalist types will use it for that context.

I agree with just using a single ‘m’ in metric though. Miles & llath just looks a bit silly really. We are slowly heading to metric. In England, there’s now small signs on the motorway which mark the location every 50m, so that the driver can tell the recovery services their exact location, when using a mobile phone. Not seen these in Wales yet, so the English must hate everything ‘English’ more than the Welsh do.

By: philh

philh — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:09:20 +0000

The EU Commission made it clear last year that they couldn’t care less what units the UK used on road signs.

Hopefully those who object to English only signs will take on board the fact that ‘m’ is a symbol not an abbreviation for ‘metre’. Similarly with other SI units and the agreed symbols.

If the recommendations in this article were taken up Welsh language minded people could just read ‘m’ as a symbol for llath and ‘km’ as 1000 llath etc.

By: Martin Vlietstra

Martin Vlietstra — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:31:48 +0000

On a small matter of pedantry, the signs proposed above fall foul of the EU directive 80/181/EEC on two counts. Article 3.4 of the directive states “The indication expressed in a unit of measurement listed in Chapter I shall predominate. In particular, the indications expressed in units of measurement not listed in Chapter I shall be expressed in characters no larger than those of the corresponding indication in units listed in Chapter I”.

The intenationally accepted symbols “min” and “h” are included in the EU’s list of acceptable units. The local units “mun” and “awr” are not and therefore may not predominate. In addition the directive staegts that “h”, not “hr” shall be the symbol used to denote “hours”. Also the directive implicitly implies that the “s” should not be used as a plural.

IMHO, the best way to denote time representation is to write it as “1:15 h” etc.

By: Peter K

Peter K — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:35:16 +0000

I’m surprised that Wales does not use metres (m and km) on traffic signs.

Apart from the more obvious reasons to use metres, the metre is also a much closer match to the old 40-inch Welsh yard (1.016m) than the 36-inch English yard (0.9144m) is.

see http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Welsh_yard

By: A

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:36:52 +0000

Mr D, is km the known measurement for cycle routes? I had a look on a site like Sustrans and the primary unit they use is miles. I have no idea which unit the pedestrian/cycle signs where I live use. Other cycling sites use a mix of mi and km.

I wonder how much the first sign would cost, especially since the times are done four times to state one piece of information.

By: Richard Birkby

Richard Birkby — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:16:17 +0000

I foresee collisions between cyclists and pedestrians as the former try to understand what on earth the sign is all about as the latter stand beside it trying to make sense of it all.

By: Mr D

Mr D — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:45:47 +0000

I hate to see bicycle signs in time rather than distance. Miles or kilometres would do for me, but as kilometres is the known measurement for cycle routes and what I’m used to when cycling, I’d prefer that. Anything but distance measured in time (it depends who’s cycling)! Ridiculous. For the mix of English and Welsh, if you’re not used to it in its current form, you’d have to get off your bike to read it.

By: Ezra Steinberg

Ezra Steinberg — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:13:20 +0000

Has anyone in Wales, whether in government, public safety, or other areas of Welsh civic life provided feedback on this matter? I would imagine most persons in Wales would prefer to have the simpler, more readable signs on their roadways. Moreover, I suspect most inhabitants of Wales are more amenable to using metric since they do not have any particular attachment to anything “English”. (After all, who in Wales will forget the invasion by Edward I or the flooding of the Tryweryn valley?) However, since I’ve spent my entire life on this side of The Pond [i.e. the USA], can anyone confirm (or rebut) this notion?

By: Tim Bentley

Tim Bentley — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:45:52 +0000

I was talking to my 22 son recently about the yard/metre debate whan he admitted that he didn’t know if a yard was longer or shorter than a metre. There must be millions of people in this country in same position who have never had any pracitical experience of the yard. For the purposes of this signage review, replacing the yard with the metre would be an extremely sensible and simple thing to do, as the UKMA’s pictorials so grahically illustrate.

Tim Bentley