Pave: Panneaux de mystère

Le jour 326 de Sarko

Some of these new signs are absolutely without interest. It’s over-information to keep the sign-makers in business. 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.

Jean-Pierre Lemonnier,
secrétaire général de Union Nationale Intersyndicale
des Enseignants de la Conduite (Unidec), commenting
on the new batch of French road signs
(infra)

BEWARE FALLING GRAPES!
THE SIGNS THAT ARE DRIVING FRANCE ROUND THE BEND

PARIS April 5, 2008 (Times Online) - The 20 new signs from the superministry of the environment are intended to update obsolete pictograms but they also include new ones that are mystifying France.

In one case, comprising a pair of half-moons that look decidedly cleavage-like, drivers may even be driven to distraction. “A certain number of them remain perfectly impenetrable to drivers with hundreds of thousands of kilometres under their wheels,” Le Figaro said.

... And once they have been learnt, some drivers may be wondering what the point of them is. The half-moons, for example, inform passing traffic that near by is “a garden that 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”.

... Thirsty drivers will be relieved to see a bunch of grapes signifying that “wine products” can be found near by, while those who happen to have a boat on the roof will be informed of a suitable launch point by a figure of a man apparently ramming his canoe into the bottom of a lake.

PANNEAUX DE SIGNALISATION
New French Road Sign Indicating French Road Signs Ahead

This new road sign incorporates both new and familiar panneaux (L to R, T to B):

• Communist Ahead

• Klaatu barada nikto (Peace Talks Ahead)

• Angry Zone

• Socialist Ahead

• Caution! You Are In France

• Quit Smoking (formerly, No Smoking)

• Scopolamine Available

• State-funded Abortions Available

• Quoi ?

Back to our article.

The new batch of French signs shows how official zeal to convey alerts with simple shapes has overcome common sense, critics say. “Too much information kills the information,” Jean-Pierre Lemonnier, secretary-general of the National Driving Instructors’ Union, said.

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 were baffling and superfluous:

Some are so obscure, they evoke nothing.

PFFT (What is this?): Is this the road for Cumières-le-Mort-Homme? 3½ | Rayonnement français ½