When is a warning sign, not a warning sign?

The answer is easy – if it is a prohibition sign. In a recently available article on the BBC reports site, new controversy has been lifted about the correct use of basic safety signs.

This may seem to be just like a pedantic point of view from a safe practices indication nut – but actually there’s a significant point. The reason mentioned in this article, by a consultant of the neighborhood council, of the safety indicators is to alert the general public about the risk posed by voids between your rocks and the chance of entrapment during tidal moves in this location. Fine – then you will want to say that? The over use of indicators which prohibit behavior, without explaining the chance, tend to imply that ALL signs of the type have less impact. Disregard one sign which you can’t start to see the point – and it’s really simpler to disregard the next one – which might employ a good reason to be there.

In my notice could have been easier to alert of the genuine & not immediately clear risk – and because the risk is merely saturated in certain specific situations, let people make their own judgement about the genuine risk to them.

“Warning – tidal area, threat of entrapment.” would seem to be suitably simple, concise also to the idea. Since they are obviously custom signals, it could also be possible, if dealing with a good indication maker to produce a combined sign. These kinds of safety signs incorporate different kinds of safety concept into one indication – in cases like this it could seem sensible to employ a alert and a prohibition note.

The main threat of entrapment would seem to be to be for small kids – so my proposal could have been: “Don’t allow children that can be played on these stones unsupervised” as a prohibition signal, combined with above warning subject matter. When a risk evaluation was actually performed, that resulted in the necessity for signs to begin with – it ought to be possible to check this indication against that risk evaluation. Since this blended indication should stop small kids playing independently (the behavior about that your concern grew up) and describe the chance to visitors of the indication – it stands the most potential for actually achieving success.

Too often warning signs are being used so that they can protect against the chance of legal action – instead of properly focusing on the risk of your dangerous or intimidating incident. Obviously every one of the above is speculation – we haven’t seen the chance assessment, nor the website and it’s real risks – the main point is that it’s worthy of spending time getting the right note across on indications that will presumably be around for quite a while.

The other problem in this specific situation, would be that the signs are positioned in Wales, hence are needed under the Welsh Vocabulary Function of 1993, to be provided in both British and Welsh. This makes the sign maker’s job more difficult, to ensure that the indications are a wise overall size and continue to be relatively unobtrusive in this natural setting up. This means that the written text of both dialects will conclude needing to be smaller which can make the any sign less legible from the same distance.