50 Times People Saw Such Confusing Road Signs They Had To Share The Pics Online

People have to pass tests to become drivers for a reason: one part is to learn what different road signs mean. Interestingly, even after passing their exams, many drivers still have trouble deducing what one or another traffic sign means. If you've ever been in a situation where a road sign confused you, you're not alone. According to a survey conducted by My Vision, 58% have had trouble driving because of bad signage.

When researchers asked people to identify particular signs, the majority had trouble with the "Road construction" sign. 13% of the respondents confused it with the railroad crossing sign, 4% thought it was a sign for slow-moving vehicles, and 4% identified it as a no-passing sign. Other tricky signs included the narrow bridge ahead, divided highway ending, and the railroad after turn signs.

You might want to blame drivers for not learning their road signs when they were supposed to. But there might be another explanation for people's confusion with road signs: American road signs are just so different from the rest of the world! Signs like "Can't stop here" and signs denoting the speed limit look almost identical or similar in most countries, whether it's Austria, Japan, India, or Mauritius.

But in America, they're totally different. Why is that? Well, the U.S. refused to adhere to the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals. The government tried to implement European road signage, and experiments were set up on several U.S. highways. However, Americans saw the strange signage as an infringement on American exceptionalism. One citizen even said: "If I saw a Russian sign, I certainly wouldn't pay any attention to it."

Another reason why the U.S. refused to sign the Vienna treaty was that they were in the process of building the interstate highway system. The changes they would have to make to adhere to the treaty and change the road signs probably would've been a logistical nightmare.

But, at the end of the day, America has a pretty long history of cars and driving. Even if the first car was invented in Germany by Carl Benz in 1866, for Americans, the inventor of the American car has always been Henry Ford in 1908. Since then, Americans have proudly been an automotive people, taking pride in their cars, roads, and even signs.

Yet, Americans aren't the only ones who find road signs confusing. A similar survey by UK company Tempcover Insurance showed that Brits are just as bad at recognizing some road signs as Americans are. For example, 83% failed to deduce what the "No Vehicle" sign meant, and a whopping 73% also didn't know what the blue and red "Can't stop here" sign was for. Other traffic signs that Brits had trouble with were "No Overtaking," signs giving vehicles from the opposite direction priority, and the "End of Dual Carriageway" sign.

What about you, Pandas? How good are you at recognizing traffic signs? I personally had a doozy during my first visit to the States, when I accidentally drove into the wrong side of the traffic. And, in some weird twist of fate, a sheriff turned up right in front of me.

Have you ever had similar traffic stories? Share them with us in the comments! And if you'd like to see more funny and confusing road signs, check out our previous compilation right here!