După cum se spune, restul e istorie. Iată-ne în 2008, circulând cu voioşie pe minunatele drumuri ale patriei. Din fericire, autorităţile române n-au pierdut timpul şi şi-au făcut cu conştiinciozitate datoria. Drumurile ţării sunt presărate cu ‚delicii’ pentru şoferi de toate felurile. De la integrame, anagrame, puzzle-uri până la rebusuri alambicate, totul se poate găsi pe indicatoarele rutiere de pe plaiurile unde ‚buciumul sună cu jale’. Oare ca să avertizeze şoferii? Hmmm...

Mai jos veţi găsi o parte din creaţiile ingenioase cu care autorităţile rutiere ne-au împodobit drumurile. După cum se zice: o imagine face cât o mie de cuvinte.

Să ne înţelegem clar: logica nu e o cerinţă obligatorie în trafic...

Cine a zis că trebuie să reduci viteza înaintea unei curbe periculoase?

După cum se vede, nu prea au mai rămas locuri libere de parcare. Poate tomberonul avea abonament...

Cine a zis că natura divină şi cea umană nu se pot împăca? Se pare chiar că se înţeleg de minune. Pe un stâlp cel puţin...

Cuvintele ar fi de prisos. În calitate de participant cu drepturi depline la o societate orientată spre consum, şoferului îi sunt oferite o mulţime de alternative dintre care să o aleagă pe cea care îi convine cel mai mult în funcţie de diverşi parametri: oră, direcţie de mers, grabă, numărul celorlalţi participanţi la trafic şi posibilii parametrii ai acestora. Ce mai: democraţia e în floare!

Dacă ai nevoie de un pic de exerciţiu mintal şi ţi-e poftă de jocuri lingvistice, autorităţile silvice ţi-au intuit deja dorinţa! Poţi descoperi greşeala?

Newton? Legile gravitaţiei? Hmmm, probabil noţiuni dintr-un trecut mult prea îndepărtat pentru ca cineva să şi le amintească. Urmează doar indicatorul !

După cum vedeţi, nu e deloc uşor să fii un bun şofer şi să respecţi regulile de circulaţie când vine vorba de indicatoare rutiere. Cel puţin nu atunci când acestea sfidează regulile bunului simţ. Nu uitaţi: conduceţi prudent!

As they say, the rest is history. Here we are, in 2008, highly engaged in traffic. Luckily, the Romanian authorities have diligently seen to that and have left us wanting for nothing. Traffic signs range from the utterly correct and serious to the ones meant to ‚test your limits’, just to show that as a driver you shouldn’t be ‚prejudiced’. Below you will find just a few of the ‚highly creative and inspirational’ traffic signs the Romanian authorities have come up with.. An image is worth a thousand words, isn’t it?

As you can see from the image above, logic is no absolute prerequisite in traffic.

Furthermore, who said that when faced with dangerous curves ahead you should slow down? Quite the contrary!

As you can see, there aren’t many parking options left. Well, I guess the good places are always taken, aren’t they?

Who said the mortal nature of man could not meet the divine? Apparently it’s possible. On a signpost at least...

The picture says it all. As a true member of a consumer society, the driver has to be presented with lots of options to choose from. A democratic country through and through.

If you ever feel the need of a bit of mental activity and want to exert yourself at some vocabulary games, the Forest Authorities have already seen to that. Can you spot the error?

Newton? The laws of gravitation? Hmmm, probably just concepts from a too distant past to be remembered. Or applied. Just follow the traffic sign!

As you can see it is not always easy to be a good driver and abide by the law when it comes to traffic signs. At least, not when they go against pure and simple common sense. Remember: drive safely!

Básicamente, existen dos tipos de señales: el estándar europeo y el estándar estadounidense. En América Latina se utiliza el segundo, aunque siempre varía de país a país. En colombia por ejemplo, las señales se dividen principalmente en tres tipos: las preventivas, las reglamentarias y las informativas.

Las preventivas son amarillas con negro y tienen forma de diamante; se encargan de prevenir, como la misma palabra lo indica, cualquier peligro en la vía. Las reglamentarias son las blancas con negro y rojo, y son por lo general en forma circular. Por último, las informativas, de forma rectangular, son azules con blanco y negro.

En Colombia, como en la gran mayoría de países, existen numerosas campañas que promueven el cumplimiento de las señales de transito para evitar accidentes. Hace un buen tiempo apareció una campaña llamada “Las Estrellas Negras” que buscaba concientizar tanto a los peatones como a los conductores sobre los peligros en las vías. Cuando alguien muere en las vías por imprudencia, se dibuja una estrella sobre el pavimento; de esta forma, todas las personas se darán cuenta de lo que pasó. Algunos afirman que la campaña no es suficiente o que puede resultar muy costoso pintar cada estrella; sin embargo, esta campaña ha hecho pensar a más de una persona antes de cometer una infracción de tránsito.

In general, there are two types of signs: the European system and the American system. In Latin America the second system is widely used, however, the signs vary from country to country. In Colombia, the signs are classified in three kinds: Warning signs, Mandatory signs and Information signs.
Warning signs are yellow diamond shaped with a black symbol. Mandatory signs are circular with a red border; they have a white background and a black symbol. Information signs have many shapes and colors; but they are mainly blue with white and black symbols.

In Colombia, as in many other countries, there are some campaigns that promote the good circulation to avoid accidents. “Las Estrellas Negras” (black stars) is a campaign developed some time ago that aims to make pedestrians as well as drivers aware of the danger on the routes. When someone dies on the way due to the imprudence, a black star is painted on the road surface, so everybody realizes what happened. Some people say that this is not enough or that painting starts can be expensive; nonetheless, more than one person have thought twice before crossing.

But our cute Mayor must figure out another way to combat the worsening traffic jams in Beijing. Nowadays, there are already 3,000,000 automobiles running on the road in Beijing ------And, this number is increasing by 1,000 everyday!

Such the huge amount of cars makes 90% of the roads in Beijing saturated. According to the official statistics, during the rush hour, the average speed of the cars is 20 km/h; In some very busy area, the speed is 7 km/h ------a little bit faster than walking!

To encourage people to take public transportation, the government offers an extremely cheap price. For instance, you can take almost any bus to anywhere in the city by only spending 0.04 Euro; you can also take the subway to travel around the whole city by only 0.2 Euro. However, you may need to be even braver to take the public transportation than driving you own cars. There is a joke (which is not that elegant) stinging the crowdedness of the Subway in Beijing: One guy once complained: “the subway is so damnit crowed that it made my wife abortive last week! Another guy said:”so what? My wife got pregnant because of the damnit crowded subway last week!”

Although it’s just a joke, the experience of taking subway during the rush hour in Beijing is indeed a challenge. There is a kind of special “guard” in both Beijing’s and Tokyo’s subway systems. Their duty is giving apologize first then pushing you into the train. The “guard” in Beijing may not only help you to get into the train, but even also help you to get off the train ------ for those passengers who are not strong enough to elbow a way through the crowd, they can just throw their arms to the guard and then wait to be dragged out from the carriage…

Now the officials of Beijing are racking their brains. They launched a website for collecting people’s suggestions regarding how to improve Beijing’s traffic situation. If you have any good idea, you may tell them as well:

Online Forum: http://zw.bjjtw.gov.cn/wsxx/jyzx/
E-mail: bjjtw@bjjtw.gov.cn
Hotline (English): +86-10-68351150 +86-10-68351570

Japan's subway:

Das erste Straßenschild wurde offensichtlich Opfer einer heftigen Hagel-Attacke, die kleine Löcher in dem guten Stück hinterlassen hat, was dann zufällig so aussieht, als hätte es jemand wie verrückt beschossen. Aber bitte, so etwas Dummes und Sinnloses? Ein Deutscher?! Das ist wirklich zu abwegig.

Auf dem zweiten Bild sehen wir ein Parkverbot-Schild, das bessere Tage gesehen hat. Einst war es stolzes Symbol von Ordnung und Gesetz und rief allen zu: „Wage es nicht! Kannst du nicht mein gelbe Warnfarbe sehen?“ Ja, dieses Schild kämpfte früher gegen Chaos und Gesetzlosigkeit. Aber hat sich jemand einmal Gedanken gemacht, wie hart das ist? Für seine Ideale zu kämpfen und dafür gehasst zu werden? Es ist zermürbend und deshalb kostet es immense Kräfte, wodurch letztlich der natürliche Verfall zu solch einer schlechten Verfassung führt. Und wirklich, niemals würde ein Deutscher so etwas mit einem Straßenschild machen!

Das letzte ist eindeutig ein Missverständnis. In Wahrheit war dieses Schild nie dafür gedacht, irgendwo zu stehen. Einige weitsichtige Beamte haben es in den See gelegt, um zu vermeiden, dass jemand den schädlichen Einfluss von Wasser auf Automotoren unterschätzt. Wer käme auf die Idee, dass jemand gegen das Schild gefahren sei? Sogar aus Wut, weil diese verfluchten Dinger immer genau dort stehen, wo das Auto perfekt geparkt werden könnte? Nein, nicht in Deutschland. Wir fahren nicht gegen Schilder – wir verehren sie!

Zusammenfassend lässt sich sagen, dass wir erfolgreich die herausragende Wertschätzung der Deutschen für Gesetze und Regeln verteidigt haben. Trotz dieser zugegeben etwas verdächtig anmutenden Fotos von Straßenschildern. Ich würde wirklich gerne noch näher darauf eingehen, aber ich muss leider los – mein Auto steht seit Stunden im Parkverbot.

The first road sign obviously fell victim to a severe hail storm impounding holes into it, this accidentally made it look like somebody had fired at it like a lunatic. But please, who would do something that stupid and pointless? A German?! That’s really too far-fetched.

In the second picture we can make out a no parking-sign that has definitely seen better days. Once it was a proud symbol of law and order shouting out loud and clear: “Don’t you dare! Can’t you see my yellow color that’s warning you to step back?” Yes, this sign used to fight to prevent chaos and lawlessness. But have you ever thought of how exhausting this can be? Fighting for your ideals and being hated for it? It’s back-braking and over time its strength will gradually wane and finally the natural decay will result in such a bad shape. And no way – under no circumstances – would a German batter a road sign like this!

The last one is clearly a misunderstanding. In fact, this sign was never meant to stand anywhere. Some thoughtful officials put it in the lake in order to avoid people underestimating the harmful effect of water on a car engine. Or were you actually thinking that somebody might have hit the sign? Maybe even out of anger over the fact that these bloody signs always stand right where you can park a car perfectly well? No, not in Germany. We don’t hit signs, we adore them!

In conclusion, we have successfully defended the outstanding devotion of Germans to rules and regulations, despite these admittedly slightly ambiguous-looking road sign pictures. And I would really like to further elaborate on this, but sadly I have to head off now – my car has been parked in the no parking zone for hours.

Si vous parlez à un routier en Belgique, il y a de grandes chances … qu’il ne soit pas Belge! Le transit routier voit de plus en plus de routiers étrangers passer par ce beau pays: 41,3% l’année passée, soit +10% par rapport à 2000 ! Pourtant, vous allez le voir, emprunter les routes de ce beau pays exige presque d’être trilingue…

A Eupen, en allemand et français.

En Belgique, la région de Bruxelles est bilingue français-néerlandais. Les deux langues y sont donc obligatoirement utilisées pour toute la signalisation locale. À l'inverse, la signalisation est unilingue en Flandre et en Wallonie: respectivement en néerlandais et en français. Sans parler des “communes à facilités”, ces enclaves linguistiques qui bénéficient de droits linguistiques exceptionnels en français, néerlandais ou allemand. Voilà bien qui explique que le nom des villes puissent changer sur les panneux routiers en l’espace de quelques kilomètres! Lille en français, Rijsel en néerlandais ; Mons et Bergen ; Braine-le-Comte et 's-Gravenbrakel ; Léau et Zoutleeuw ; Grez-Doiceau et Graven… De quoi déboussoler nos pauvres routiers étrangers…

A Bruxelles: néerlandais et français.

A Bruxelles, les panneaux sont donc rédigés en deux langues, tout comme le nom des rues. Voire mieux, autour des institutions internationales, des gares et de l’aéroport.

A Bruxelles: un panneau quadrilingue.

De manière récurrente, les panneaux bilingues néerlandais-français cristallisent les rancoeurs flamingantes:

Un panneau taggé près de Bruxelles

Qu‘en est-il en France ?

Hé bien si j’en crois le Dr W. Pédia, “la signalisation bilingue est utilisée dans certaines régions. Elle se limite à des indications toponymiques de localisation et de direction”. Le français est présent partout, et la langue régionale n’est utilisés qu’au cas par cas: noms de villages, noms de rues, lieux-dits, rivières, lieux historiques, etc.

A Strasbourg (Alsace), dans le centre historique.

Le breton est très présent: la langue est un élément très important de l’identité bretonne.

Quimper, en français et breton.

Et la langue traditionnelle n‘empêche pas la modernité !!

En Corse, c’est le français, le corse ainsi que l’italien qui sont à l’honneur. Cette île magnifique est en proie à des revendications autonomistes, qui passent parfois par la „correction“ des panneaux…

Seule subsiste la version corse.

Dernier exemple: le basque, présent en France essentiellement en Pyrénées-Atlantique. Heureusement qu’il y a encore la version française, sans quoi nous aurions beaucoup de mal… http://www.lexiophiles.com/english/top-list-of-the-hardest-languages-to-learn

Français-basque.

Voilà un (petit) aperçu de la signalisation multilingue en Belgique et en France: il existe d’autres cas où la langue régionale est représentée sur un pied d’égalité avec le français. 1000 excuses à nos lecteurs gascons, catalans, occitans, créoles, votre tour viendra ! Quant à nos amis flamands, je ne pense pas que les dialectes soit utilisés dans la signalisation (mais je peux me tromper: manifestez-vous dans les commentaires !).
Enfin, il ne me reste qu’à remercier les ayants droit de certaines photos utilisées:
- Pour Eupen, Bruxelles, Strasbourg, la Corse et le basque : Wikimedia Foundation
[http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalisation_bilingue]
- Pour le panneau bruxellois taggé: ”Ton tag à toi”
[http://peripherie.lalibreblogs.be/archive/2007/06/13/ton-tag-a-toi.html]
- Pour la Bretagne: Mikael Bodlore-Penlaez, sur Geobreizh.com
[http://www.geobreizh.com/breizh/fra/signaletique2.asp?numero_panneauxcat=4]

Mais alors, comment faire pour ne pas créer de conflits linguistiques ? Il semble que Makkinga, une petite ville néerlandaise de 1000 habitants, ait trouvé la solution…

En bonus dans les commentaires, une petite compilation de panneaux bizarres: un peu hors sujet, mais marrant quand même… Enjoy, Languages Lovers!

When you talk to a truckdriver in Belgium (come on, you know it will happen one day), there’s every chance that … he’s actually not Belgian ! Road traffic counts more and more foreign truckers crossing that lovely small piece of a country: 41,3% last year, this is +10% compared to 2000 ! Although, taking the roads in Belgium nearly implies to be trilingual… True story. Read further.

In Eupen, in German and French.

In Belgium, the Brussel region is bilingual French-Dutch. Both languages are compulsory for the whole local road signage. Inversely, road signs are unilingual in Flanders and Wallonia: respectively in Dutch and French. Not to mention the “communes à facilités” (faciliteitengemeenten), these enclaves getting some linguistic liberties in French, Dutch or German. Here is the explanation to the constant switching between citynames: Lille in French, Rijsel in Dutch ; Mons and Bergen ; Braine-le-Comte and 's-Gravenbrakel ; Léau and Zoutleeuw ; Grez-Doiceau and Graven… No way that our foreign drivers could easily find their path …

In Brussels: Dutch and French.

In Bruxelles, road signs are written in the two languages, just like the street names or most of the public announcements. Or even more, around international institutions, some stations and the airport.

In Brussel: a quadrilingual board. (Du-Fr-Ge-En)

Though, French-Dutch signs suffer regularly from the wrath of Flemish separatists:

A vandalized sign near Brussels.

What about France’s situation ?

Well, referring to Dr W. Pedia, “bilingual roadsignage is used in certain regions. It is restricted to indications of toponymy, situation or direction”. French can be seen everywhere, and regional language on a case by case basis: town names, street names, place name, rivers, historic places, etc.

In Strasbourg (Alsace) (historic center): “Cat street”.

Breton stands as a key element of the breton identity ; therefore it is used in many situations.

Quimper, in French and Breton.

A traditional language conciliates very well with modernity!

Airport (French-Breton).

In Corsica, French coexists with Corsican language (corse) and Italian. The beautiful island is the victim of separatist claims, sometimes expressed by the „correction“ of roadsigns…

Only the Corsican version remains.

Last example: Basque, to be found in France mainly in Pyrénées-Atlantique. How lucky we are, French is still used, otherwise we would have a hard time to understand anything … http://www.lexiophiles.com/english/top-list-of-the-hardest-languages-to-learn

French-Basque.

This was a (short) overview of the multilingual roadsignage in Belgium and France: in many other cases, regional languages are used and set on an even foot with French. I’m terribly sorry towards our Gascon, Catalan, Occitan, Creole readers: soon it’s your turn! About our Flemish friends, as far as I know, dialects are not used on road signs (in case I’m wrong, please contribute in the comments!).

Finally, let’s not forget the copyrights stuff:
- For Eupen, Brussels, Strasbourg, Corsica and Basque : Wikimedia Foundation
[http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalisation_bilingue]
- For the tagged sign in Brussels: ”Ton tag à toi”
[http://peripherie.lalibreblogs.be/archive/2007/06/13/ton-tag-a-toi.html]
- For Brittany: Mikael Bodlore-Penlaez, Geobreizh.com
[http://www.geobreizh.com/breizh/fra/signaletique2.asp?numero_panneauxcat=4]

So what? How to prevent linguistic conflicts ? It seems that Makkinga (1000 inhab.), a little town in Netherlands, solved the solution in an unusual way…

Extra bonus: in the comments, a Youtube compilation bizarre signs: quite off-board, funny nevertheless … Enjoy, Languages Lovers!