According to research carried out by Leasing Options, the great British driving public aren’t very good when it comes to road signs – at all.
The company challenged 2,000 drivers to undertake a test where they were presented with eight real signs and eight fakes signs, and asked to identify which were the real deal and which were the made-up ones. Amazingly, the respondents made a total cock-up of the test.
For instance, 56% believed that the perfectly legitimate sign that depicts a toad crossing a road was fake (no, there really is a sign that depicts a toad that signifies ‘Migrating Toad Crossing Ahead’ in rural areas). But one of the fake signs managed to fool a whopping 75% of drivers into thinking it was true.
We won’t give away any clues about the wrong and right answers – instead take the test below to see how you do. Hopefully you’ll do a lot better than those surveyed as not one driver out of the 2,000 managed to get full marks – and only 8% got 14/16 or above.
Perhaps the real issue here though is that a third of drivers (31%) feel there are too many road signs in the first place; four in 10 (40%) believe that there is a lack of understanding around road signs; and three quarters (75%) say they would fail a theory test if they had to retake it today.
Road signs are important for public safety and so it’s a concern that there seems to be such widespread confusion around them. Three in four drivers said that they would fail the theory test if they took it today so more needs to be done to improve their knowledge and confidence in this area.’ – Mike Thompson, sales director at Leasing Options
