Signs must be readable for safer roads — experts

MANILA, Philippines — Street signs in the country should be readable for safety on the road, experts said last Thursday.

“Road readability means that motorists should know what (to expect) on the roads that they are plying,” said Ma. Sheilah Napalang, director of the University of the Philippines National Center for Transportation Studies.

Road readability, according to the Global Alliance of Non-government Organizations for Road Safety, must be given attention as well as the other so-called pillars of road safety – safer road users, road safety management, safer vehicles and post-crash response.

In some cases of road crashes, Napalang noted, motorists would be surprised by the condition of roads due to the lack of information from road signs.

Napalang added that an important component to consider in achieving road readability is the motorist’s reaction time, which takes between one and three seconds.

“If a motorist is driving at 100 kilometers per hour, he might be traveling at a speed of 28 meters for every second,” she said.

“In three seconds, he has traveled 80 meters without doing anything… and when applying the brake, you could only stop after 200 meters,” Napalang added.

“If the driver did not expect this (sudden stop), road crashes happen,” she said.

To avoid crashes, Napalang said road signs must be conspicuous or easily seen, credible, consistent and easily understood with signs on them instead of letters or words.

Meanwhile, Department of Transportation Assistant Secretary Mark Richmund de Leon said he believed that the education of drivers, commuters and pedestrians is important in achieving road safety.

De Leon pointed out that persons on the road must respect one another. 

“If there is no campaign like that, we cannot expect improvement in our country’s road situation,” he maintained.

Napalang and De Leon spoke at a forum during the observance of UN Road Safety Week, organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety in Pasay City last Thursday.

The WHO recently disclosed that 1.35 million persons have been killed every year due to road accidents.