Beware Falling Grapes! France Confused By New Road Signs

Charles Bremners Paris weblog

Holiday motorists in France this summer are advised to bone up first on a set of odd new road signs that advise on such matters as the proximity of wine and places to put a canoe in the water.

The 20 new signs from the new super-ministry of the environment are intended to update obsolete pictograms but they include new ones that are mystifying France. A certain number of them remain perfectly impenetrable to drivers with hundreds of thousands of kilometers under their wheels, said le Figaro.

What, drivers are wondering, are they supposed to make of a pair of opposing half-moons or breasts ? The sign is intended to alert them to a garden which has been officially certified as a garden of note. On inquiry, the Ministry of Culture defines this as a garden certified as having design, plants and care of a remarkable level.

Motorists hunting for the railway station will now be helped with a new image of a speeding train that points to a station with traffic above 30,000 passengers a year. Thirsty drivers will be relieved by the sign with a bunch of grapes that signifies that wine products can be found nearby.

Two other incomprehensible signs indicate that you are approaching A museum certified as a Museum of France and Reception area of a sensitive natural space.

The signs, which add to the 500 tightly regulated panneaux de signalisation already in existence, spring from a hallowed tradition. Gallic genius devised many of Europes standard motoring signs, starting with an international conference of horseless carriage nations in Paris in 1908.

Some French roadsign traditions have not been widely adopted. These include the famous Toutes Directions (All directions) in towns, which sometimes leads to another sign offering Autres directions (other directions)

This time official zeal to convey information with simple shapes has overcome commonsense, say critics. Too much information kills the information, said Jean-Pierre Lemonnier, Secretary-General of the National Driving Instructors Union. Some of these new signs are absolutely without interest. Its over-information to keep the sign-makers in business, he told The Times. They have to stop the spiral of stupidity, like the one showing the exit of a tunnel or the risk of bumping into a slower vehicle.

Marina Duhamel, an artist who has written a history of road signs, noted that much of the world had copied the brown signs indicating places of interest that France devised in the 1970s. However the new ones are baffling and superfluous, she said. Some are so obscure, they evoke nothing. When they try to describe everything, you end up seeing nothing.

Tag Cloud

External Information

Additional Information

Where Am I?