 Talk to traffic engineers at any level of government about the quality of traffic signs on our city and county roads, and you'll hear a lot of similar concerns. Signs are old and worn out. They've been vandalized, or they've been knocked down. Sometimes the problem is too many signs, making it difficult for drivers to pick out the ones they need. Or the signs are non-standard in size, design and color. Drivers expect uniformity. A traffic sign has to look like a traffic sign, or it's likely to be ignored. Add to all that the need for new signs in new locations, and it's no wonder that many agencies responsible for traffic safety can't keep up with the demand. It's ironic. In a country with the most sophisticated highway system in the world, we're falling short in an area so basic to traffic safety. In a way, we've brought it on ourselves. We've built roads where higher speeds and increased capacity are part of the plan. Drivers have come to expect large, uniform, easy to read signs to guide them on their way. When they leave the major highways, however, drivers often carry the same expectations with them. So when they encounter traffic control devices that are unfamiliar or that have been improperly installed and maintained, they become indecisive, frustrated and confused. Not a good frame of mind for safe driving. In response, the Federal Highway Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation has sought to establish national standards for traffic signs through the MUTCD, the Manual on Uniformed Traffic Control Devices. Most states and many local transportation agencies have adopted the standards of the MUTCD, but problems remain. Mr. Phil Russell, Chief of the Traffic Control Branch of the Federal Highway Administration. We find that there's a wide variation in the function, the performance, and the maintenance of these traffic control devices. It just varies pretty much by the jurisdiction and if we think of states, some states have better programs than others and the same true with cities and counties. The cities and counties, there seems to be a pattern where a city or county will have a quite good program and will have well-maintained signs of markings or they tend not to have a very good program at all. It seems to be those two extremes pretty much. What we find is that thinking of the interstate system first, but this is true of major roads that operated by major cities and counties is that when these roads are built, fine first class traffic control devices are installed. But after those signs have been in place for 10, 12, or 15 years, it's the nature of these materials that they're no longer reflect at night. They don't appear, you can't read them during the daytime. Top quality traffic signs have a useful life of 7 to 10 years, but the fact is many will be left in service much longer. As a sign ages, it loses its reflectivity, so while it may appear okay in the daytime, it virtually disappears at night. Such a problem might go unnoticed by drivers who are familiar with the area. They know where the signs are. But what about the visiting driver, or one who drives infrequently? Don't we have the same responsibility to make sure they get the warning and guidance they need? Good street and traffic signs make good business sense, too. Products and services can be delivered more efficiently, and customers who can find their way easily in and around area shopping districts are more likely to return. In addition, there's no doubt that well-signed streets can aid and dramatically improve the response times of our emergency services. From an ordinance point of view, non-standard or defective signage is more difficult to enforce. Violators have argued successfully that they were not at fault because signs were not easily seen or understood. We must also face the fact that, as our population ages, we'll have more older drivers on the road. Studies show that drivers over 60 need signs that are up to eight times brighter than those needed by a 20-year-old. The numbers can be intimidating. An Indiana survey of traffic signs on state highways found that 60% were seriously deficient in such important factors as reflectivity, design, size, and placement. And behind all of this looms the issue of liability. Whenever a local agency installs a traffic control device, it makes an implicit agreement to maintain that device in good condition. Failure to do so can expose the agency to huge liability risks. We know from experience that where cities, counties, or states do not maintain proper inventories, do not make proper routine inspections, then when there are accidents and there are traffic control devices that aren't up to acceptable standards, then they have the liability problem and people have sued cities, counties, and states a number of times over this situation and have collected where they wouldn't have been able to collect had there been a proper program for the signing. In a study of its liability exposure due to unsafe road conditions, Pennsylvania's Department of Transportation reported that in 1985 it paid out over $20 million in judgments that were directly related to traffic sign deficiencies. Local government agencies have experienced the same consequences on a smaller scale. Many jurisdictions could have totally re-signed their streets for less money than it cost them to settle one court awarded judgment. What's the solution? While there's no quick fix, there are ways to begin to solve the many problems related to traffic signs. Many of today's traffic administrators are responding by developing sign management programs, systematic ways of evaluating, upgrading, and maintaining the quality of their traffic signs. Although there are many variations, most sign management programs consist of three basic elements. First, an inventory of all signs within the system. Second, an evaluation of the sign's condition. Third, a schedule of routine sign replacement. Tom Hicks, traffic engineer for the state of Maryland, describes some of the benefits of such a program. A city or a county that has a good signing program would have, in my judgment, a large benefit-cost ratio. It would serve the citizens very well and improve safety in more orderly flow of traffic and less congestion in certain situations. But by far, the safety is the product that's realized. The community is further protected by being able to show that they have a systematic way of reviewing in the field what they have out there in the way of traffic control devices, of having determined the priority for upgrading them, for maintaining them, of doing things on a systematic basis in line with their available resources, both manpower and dollars. The first task normally associated with an effective sign maintenance program is to conduct an inventory of all signs presently in the system. There's a wide variety of ways to conduct an inventory, from video logging to manual recording out in the field. Whatever the method, a sign inventory is the best first step an agency can take to begin taking control of its signage problems. As part of the inventory, each sign should be evaluated, judged for conformance to the standards of the state's traffic control manual or the MUTCD. In addition, transportation officials should conduct nighttime reviews of all traffic control devices on a regular basis. We emphasize the need for nighttime reviews and looking at these devices at night. Once again, Phil Russell. What we do with the people we visit where we go out with these people at state level during the daytime and we show them pavement markings, we look at pavement markings, we look at signs and we note the condition of them and the location of them, how do they appear, can you read them, what do they look like. And then we take measurements with these instruments and we record those measurements. Then we go out at night with the same people and we look at the same devices and we find, of course, how it startles people to say, but that sign looked good during the daytime and they find it has a reading of 50 or 60 or whatever, which is completely inadequate. And yet during the day it looked fine and at night you can't see it. Information provided through inventories and reviews helps traffic managers set priorities and make more effective signage decisions. They can plan how they can best bring their traffic signs up to standard, keeping in mind funding and manpower limitations. That's exactly the approach the city of Bloomington, Indiana used when it undertook a major project of re-signing its streets. Using funding made available through the Federal Highway Administration's Hazard Elimination Program, Bloomington's streets department contracted a private firm to perform an inventory and evaluation of all the traffic signs within the city. The control specialist Ralph Merkel describes the project. We had identified a level of need in our own service area that was very significant. We felt that perhaps 50 percent of our signage at least was in need of being replaced. This is just something that was beyond the scope of our budget without the boost that these two projects gave us. And frankly, with the amount of work that needed to be done and the fact that you can be more efficient in a large-scale operation, we felt that it would pay everyone to go in and just take everything out and start over again. Recognizing that the problem was beyond its ability to handle completely in-house, the city contracted the services of a local sign manufacturer. Signing outside services provided a number of advantages. First, it ensured the timely delivery of materials, enabling the projects to be completed on time and thereby lowering the city's liability exposure. And secondly, by purchasing large quantities of ready-made signs, the city actually lowered its per-sign costs. The overall re-signing of our city was done in two phases. The first project that was made available to us was to attack the arterial and principal streets within the city. And then the second, later program, was for all of our residential secondary streets. Then we stood back and looked at the project overall in how we could most easily, geographically divide the work areas up and assign the crews a logical flow of work. And quite simply, we divided the city up into quarters and completed a quarter of the city per work unit and then proceeded on to another area. The projects allowed us to completely re-sign all of our secondary and arterial streets. We were able to bring all of our signage up to current standards in terms of setbacks, types of material, types of hardware. It's made Bloomington an easier place to drive in, a safer place to drive in. In addition to the immediate benefits brought about through improved signing, Bloomington's system of sign maintenance and replacement provided the city with a number of long-term advantages as well. Among them, fewer unscheduled maintenance calls, calls that interrupt other duties. After record keeping, they know exactly what they're spending on materials and labor for sign replacement and can estimate future costs. And most importantly, they're providing better service for the people of Bloomington. Traffic engineer Tom Hicks sees this approach working for other jurisdictions as well. A jurisdiction that is behind in its re-signing and maintenance could very well find it to their advantage to simply divide the area up into sections and just take a section at a time and just go through and just sort of wholesaledly replace all of the signs. For one thing, then they'd have a fairly accurate record of what's new and when it was placed and they know that everything was up to standards as far as night and daytime reflectivity and color and so forth are concerned. Following this method, signs that were removed from one section would be mounted on a test rack and evaluated. Those judged to have a good amount of useful life remaining would be used in other sections as emergency replacements. Many jurisdictions have used variations of this approach, each adapting its program to meet the demands of public safety against the limitations of public funding. In some cases, that meant replacing stop signs one year and regulatory signs the next. While the details will vary, every successful program contains the same three basic elements. Inventories of all signs within the system, evaluations and reviews for compliance with the standards, and following a schedule for routine sign replacement. The program can be as comprehensive as available resources will allow. The important thing is to have a program, one that's aimed at getting deficient signage off the streets. As in Bloomington, Indiana, more and more agencies are turning to the private sector for assistance in their sign management programs. Through contracts, local agencies are taking on projects that previously would have been out of reach. Any operation that requires a substantial investment in manpower and materials is a likely candidate for contracted services. We of the American Traffic Safety Services Association are proud of the role our members have played in the re-signing of Bloomington, Indiana and hundreds of other communities across the country, and we hope that this kind of cooperation between local governments and private industry will continue as we work together toward improving traffic safety and reducing liability risks. For more information