Europeans Thinking Outside the Sign

When I first came to the US, I had to get a new driver's license. I could have arranged for an international license in Italy, but did not think about it until I was ready to leave. It was just as well, because my intention was to stay for a number of years. Since at the time I did not have a car, I borrowed one from a friend.

It seemed strange to drive an automatic car, where was the fun of shifting gears? And everyone drove really conservatively compared to Italy. The cars were much bigger, and the street signs somewhat different. Instead of indicating the direction towards which a road went, for example Milan or Rome, the signs here had numbers on them with North and South. That took some serious adjusting to.

I also saw new signs like the ones cautioning you about deer, which we do not have in Italian cities. Stop signs here were taken seriously, while in Italy they represented just a suggestion as people seldom did stop. And so were red lights. I got an education on space for parking -- there is a lot more here -- and meters in the city of Philadelphia -- they promptly ticket you even on race days when they know people will need to park somewhat in the vicinity of the race and cannot control the time they will be in the race.

But the more interesting phenomenon was the school bus and school crossing zones. I thought it was fascinating that you could get a ticket for going above 15 mph when the light was blinking and the school was closed during a holiday, for example. Stopping traffic both ways for 10 minutes while the kids are still having breakfast inside a house and the bus is waiting outside would not fly too well in Italy.

And people driving slowly on the fast lane of a highway would definitely draw some heat. When I was on the road a lot, I once saw an old lady drive 25 mph in the third lane of a busy turnpike with the state trooper following behind her, lights ablaze, so she could pull over safely. In Italy, she would have been toast.

When I came across these series of European street signs for areas designated to child safety in front and around schools I smiled to myself. Here we have in order of appearance: Madeira in Portugal, Denmark, and Bulgaria, all thinking apparently outside the sign.

Visual communication can be designed to teach as well as inform. What I see here is also a glimpse of cultural richness. Look at the curious smile on the face of the child from Madeira and the nice collaboration of the children from Denmark. The children in Bulgaria apparently test the limits of play. All in good fun.

Could our corporate communications do the same? Could they be less boilerplate, more about the culture in the organization? There are many ways to convey information: make them all yours.

Comments

[Cam Beck]

In theory, I like the idea... They're still clearly road signs, but the first one doesn't clearly communicate (to me, at least, as an outsider) that children are at play, so be more careful when driving. The other two do.

However, unless they actually cause people to drive more cautiously, all I see them doing is raising costs in an effort to be cute.

Now, being cute may actually be more effective at influencing compliance. I have no idea. It would be interesting to find out.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Cam:

The first one clearly asks to reduce speed, in Portuguese. And so does the last one, in Bulgarian (interesting to note how much closer to Russian Bulgarian is than Polish). This was part of a European campaign to raise safety awareness.

[Cam Beck]

Even without the words, I think the second and third are clear (at least from my perspective, since our signs are similar and the symbols are straightforward), but that's just my perspective... I can see a few ways of looking at it and can't know for sure without more information.

Do you happen to know if the campaign was successful? Did the rate of traffic accidents involving young pedestrians decrease?

[Valeria Maltoni]

Cam:

I do not have the data from the campaign and will research it. Maybe some of my international readers can help too. What interested me was the differences in cultural interpretations. When I first came here, the signs and visual communications in the US seemed strange.

[jens]

i guess this campaign is basically about breaking with the classical patterns of signaling and by doing so creating a) more attention to the signs and b)adding more emotional content to the message.

on a side note: i - as a german - do love of course the self organizing chaos of traffic in france, spain and most of all in italy. - few things have quite such an elegance and are more of a symbol of life itself. - sadly enough i have to say that regulations seem to be getting more and more and the police is getting stricter and stricter in the south of europe.
driving in spain for example is not much fun as you can get ridiculous fines today. as result you have a pretty neurotic behavior on the streets: spanish temper forced into a strict scheme of correctness is now overcompensating with permanent rudeness and disrespect for the weaker (smaller cars, pedestrians, cyclists...). in comparison: driving in organized germany - where everybody had always internalized the rules of the game fully - is nowadays an almost cultivated experience. ...
it is a little bit a shame: latins should be allowed to float freely everywhere in the world. it just suits them much better.
it is a little bit a shame: we are about to loose a wonderful part of human culture.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Jens:

What a wonderful observation of cultural differences as manifested in behaviors. In our rush to standardize the world -- or make it flat, as they say -- we are losing important lessons in the value of self-regulation and citizenship.

I have not driven through Germany in a long time, but I would expect a more orderly experience. The language and historical thought would indicate that.