Fun with Roadsigns

I have posted a few of the more troubling road signs I've discovered. I guess there are some folks who complain about the signage in the US. It's in English words (think "Do Not Pass" or "Not a Through Street" or "No Parking") and those can be very confusing to a non-English speaker. The US is a country of immigrants and yet we cling to our language.

Now that I'm on the other side of that equation, living as a non-native language speaker in a foreign land, I'm rethinking my stance on symbols and signage.

There was a professor at TAMU working on this when DH was getting his PhD. His whole field of endeavor was in trying to create a universal language of symbols for use worldwide in signage. I discussed it with him at a few faculty gatherings and he pointed out how useless some of our signs were... like the big H for hospital. We know it. We know hospital begins with an H and if we follow the blue H signs, we'll get to a hospital. But no foreigner knows our alphabet. So what's a better symbol for Hospital that all travelers, regardless of language, could recognize. He suggest a red cross. The Red Cross has internationalized that to indicate care, it would be recognizable to everyone.

But the problem is in adoption. All countries are in love with their own language and their own signage. His point? That's why the symbols should be limited to those few things that cross all borders and are important to all travelers. Airports, hospitals, motels and public transportation. Restrooms and information booths, clinics and big tourist areas. His idea? Create a hundred or so symbols that are internationally acceptable and then get everyone to adopt them. Really, it's the work of a lifetime. But he was hard at it when we left College Station.

Now, when I'm in an airport in France, I wish he'd been more successful. I look at the signage and understand only a fraction of it. When I drive through Tunis and look at the signs, I'm constantly wondering what the symbols mean.

A couple of them are understandable. A few took some time. The red circle with the big white minus sign for "One Way" is kind of intuitive. That didn't keep us from going the wrong way down a one way street a time or two.

Yesterday, we drove past the airport and I saw a sign for the first time as we zipped by. It showed a vehicle/car outline with a halo of orange or yellow jagged spears around it. (We were going too fast for a picture, but I might try the next time we head across the airport.) What does that mean? No car bombs? Exploding cars here? Beware of roadside bombs that might ignite your car? I have got nothing. We decided it couldn't mean "No car bombs" because it was missing either the red warning color or the circle slash that seems to have some similar meanings here.

I'll try to get a picture of the sign, but you guys tell me what you think such a sign might be stating. It was near the Air Freight portion of the airport, where a lot of trucks come and go. Maybe "don't stop on the verge when it's hot out or your car's exhaust will ignite the grass"?? I just don't know.

--Sandee Wagner