Caution: New Signs

STOP. KEEP RIGHT. NO U-TURN. The signs along U.S. highways seem to speak in a stern and unalterable language of command. But the fact is that they are constantly subject to testing and revision; and now, after more than six years of psychological and engineering research, the U.S. Department of Transportation is unveiling a whole new set of them. Some of the new signs are already up, but three years will pass before all of them are installed.

The basic idea is to make traffic signs pictorial rather than just verbal. Drivers react more quickly to pictures than to words.

So the U.S. highway is now acquiring such symbols as the skidding car, the bicycle and the diagonal slash that means "Don't." In addition, the new signs use a color code: red to prohibit, yellow to warn, green to permit movement, blue for highway services, brown for scenic suggestions. Shapes, too, are being standardized: a pennant for no passing, a circle for railroad crossings, a diamond for potential hazards.

All of this, says the Transportation Department, gives the driver a valuable "redundancy of message." But since it will take him some time to get used to all the new symbols, many local authorities plan to keep the old signs beside the new for at least a year. Redundancy plus, you might say.

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