[prennert]

I completely agree. Without savnat it would be very hard to navigate in the UK for me. Even with preparation ahead of time. The only useful feature in the UK vs other EU countries I have driven in are compass directions: NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, WEST. Some motorways also have reflectors on the lanes to guide you, which is great and I don't remember from Germany at least.

Everything else is weird. Starting from the typography which looks clumsy, to inconsistent signage (which city am I tracking at the moment? Why is it not on the sign anymore?), junction numbers which are sometimes missing, abbreviations of places on signs, directions painted on the tarmac at junctions without signs.

A lot of those A roads go through cities, but are rarely labelled as such. Fully consistent with the patchy signs of street names in cities at junctions and house numbers only present on about 30% of houses, particularly shopfronts.

Not using the E numbers is just the icing on the cake.

Further, driving on the country side is dangerous at night as there are no reflectors on either side of the road.

So I guess you are right. Non-locals are still being kept at bay by the leaky signage traditions of the UK.

[berkut]

If you think driving at night in the UK in the countryside (middle of nowhere) is dangerous, you don't want to do it in Australia or NZ...

At least the UK (on the non-minor roads) has decent "cat's eyes" that reflect light back very well from the car's headlights, as they have actual mirrors in them.

Oz and NZ instead have blocks of plastic embedded in the road instead with a reflective strip on, which in terms of visibility distance is very noticeably poorer (i.e. the reflective power is much less).

[prennert]

Really? Whenever I needed cats eyes in the UK when driving in Scotland (say east Lothian) or peak district they did not exist. I have been looking out for them a few times out of interest, but I could never spot them outside of motorways.

Obviously there will be worse places. But I am comparing the UK to other reasonably densely populated counties in the vicinity.

[jmkd]

Just like within British cities, I enjoy having occasionally quirky, inconsistent and unusual routing and signage.

On the whole, modern British road signage is of excellent quality and was globally influential. Little history here: http://www.britishroadsignproject.co.uk/jock-kinneir-margare...

For me, where there are small gaps or occasional quirks it adds to the flavour. I really don't want a rigid grid of apparent perfection imposed over anything. It may be helpful but it is of no cultural value.

[sefrost]

> directions painted on the tarmac at junctions without signs

I am from the UK and this makes driving in a new area of the UK very difficult for me. I don’t know if it’s the same in other countries as I’ve never driven in another country.

If the roads are busy then other cars are on top of the direction arrows making it impossible to know which lane to be in when approaching a lot of roundabouts or junctions.

[Symbiote]

> Starting from the typography which looks clumsy

I think the typography is wonderfully clear, especially that they use lowercase letters for most words. Several other countries use it too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_(typeface)

[rleigh]

What exactly is wrong with the typography?

It was specifically designed to be legible at a distance when moving at speed, as well as under poor driving conditions. I think it does that job well, and it's one of the reasons many other countries have adopted it--the letterforms are freely available for anyone to use.