Signs of Color

The highways and byways of the U.S. may be sporting a profusion of new color. That, at least, is the recommendation of the National Joint Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, an organization dedicated to doing something about the welter of traffic signs dotting the nation's 3,700,000 miles of roadways. They found that the multitude of hard-to-read signs has become a major cause of traffic accidents, confounding many motorists into panicking, abruptly switching lanes or coming to sudden halts. Says Committee Vice Chairman Charles W. Prisk:

"The principle is that you just must not surprise the driver at 70 m.p.h.--or even at 30 m.p.h."

Noting that "the first thing the driver sees is the color," the committee concluded a three-day meeting in Denver by recommending that the U.S. make its road signs easier to recognize by broadening the basic spectrum of six colors (white, black, red, green, yellow, blue) now being used. The new hues would include purple for school zones, orange for road construction ("detour"), and brown for public recreation areas--with grey, buff and chartreuse held in reserve for future needs. So far, Washington, D.C., and Denver have tested the purple school signs with favorable results, and Albuquerque and Syracuse are now planning to try them as well.

To make road signs still more easily recognizable, the committee also recommended greater use of uniform symbols, such as the European-style no-entry sign with a white horizontal bar on a red circle. After California installed such signs--which were lettered DO NOT ENTER--on its freeway exits two years ago, the number of fatalities caused by drivers heading up the down ramps was cut in half.

Since such proposals may lead to even more roadside signs, there is increasing concern that the posts bearing them may be themselves not unduly dangerous. The Federal Department of Transportation is placing top priority on development and distribution of signposts with so-called "frangibility," meaning that they break away on impact. After a motorist in Texas was killed crashing into a conventional post, the state replaced it with a frangible one; a few days later, right on schedule, another driver plowed into the new post--and walked away without a scratch.

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