A direction sign, more fully defined as a direction, position, or indication sign by the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals, is any road sign used primarily to give information about the location of either the driver or possible destinations, and are considered a subset of the informative signs group. Direction signs are far more varied internationally than other classes of sign, as the Vienna Convention does not specify sizes, colours, symbols or positions of such signs.
Direction signs are the oldest type of road sign; Plutarch writes about milestones being placed in the 3rd century BC, while some fingerposts in the United Kingdom date back to at least the 1690s. However, it was not until the invention of the motor car at the turn of the 20th century that modern direction signs, with fewer words and clear design, allowing them to be read at speed, evolved.
Read more about Direction, Position, Or Indication Sign: Design, Evacuation Routes
Famous quotes containing the words indication and/or sign:
“It is very certain that each man carries in his eye the exact indication of his rank in the immense scale of men, and we are always learning to read it. A complete man should need no auxiliaries to his personal presence.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“When much intercourse with a friend has supplied us with a standard of excellence, and has increased our respect for the resources of God who thus sends a real person to outgo our ideal; when he has, moreover, become an object of thought, and, whilst his character retains all its unconscious effect, is converted in the mind into solid and sweet wisdom,—it is a sign to us that his office is closing, and he is commonly withdrawn from our sight in a short time.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)