Signs of the times ...

After two car accidents in this district within a couple of weeks, both of which resulted in people losing their lives, one local friend posted that despite a profusion of warning signs, camera surveillance and more and more road rules, these fatal accidents keep happening. Perhaps, she noted, authorities should be looking at the current rules and why they're not working, rather than imposing more laws.

Fair call. And it got me wondering about signs.    

Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald (19 June 2026), journo Jo Stubbings took aim at the ludicrous number and nature of warning signs, including one at a lake warning of water (no, really!). She notes that warning signs, telling us what we can, can't and shouldn't do, are most prevalent anywhere that is owned or managed by a local council.

There's a couple of things going on here. 

The first is that local councils are shit scared of litigation - and with good reason. If a person is injured on council-owned property, the result is often a large public liability claim, regardless of whether council was actually at fault or not. 

In about 1996, a young man in Murrurundi (or Muswellbrook or Maitland - I forget which) after a long afternoon drinking session with his mates at a local pub, announced he was going to spew. He ran over the road, leant over the bridge but instead of spewing he overbalanced and fell head first into the dry creek bed, ending up a paraplegic. He launched a claim against the local council on the basis of no warning signs and won compensation - although it is unclear what such a sign should read ... Please be careful when spewing over this bridge when pissed?  

In 1997 another man, Guy Swain, who was 29 at the time, dived head first into a sandbank at Bondi Beach, breaking his neck and became quadriplegic. He launched a $3.75million claim against Waverley Council on the basis of lack of warning signs on the beach. He won the case, Waverley Council appealed and the appeal judge overturned the claim. Swain than counter appealed to the High Court, which overturned council's appeal and reinstated the compensation. 

The result of these - and many other - claims? Signs. More and more signs. It seems that in a society where litigation trumps personal accountability, authorities need to keep us safe from ourselves. 

The second thing going on with signs is what Griffith University Professor Drew Rae and co-authors have  called "safety clutter" but what most of us might call visual pollution. This is the profusion of road signs - safety signs, warning signs, roadworks signs, direction signs - that clutter our vision to the point where we just blot them out. Add to that the bigger and brighter advertising signs and hoardings, particularly in built-up urban areas, and it's virtually impossible to focus on any one sign, much less absorb information from them.

 Then there's those lengthy messages the ACT government has put around to warn us of the inherent dangers of drink driving, texting while driving and fatigue. I'm sure someone in the ACT government thought those slogans were edgy and clever, but the problem is that in the couple of seconds required to actually read the message, a driver has their eyes off the road, which kind of defeats the purpose. 

Particularly galling are the signs warning us of natural hazards when the whole point is nature! Warning us of cliffs, surf, trees or wildlife when we're actually wanting to experience those things is a bit over the top, not to mention ruining natural vistas with ugly signs. Yes, we all know nature can be dangerous. It's nature. We accept the risks. In her article, Jo Stubbings nominates Cable Beach at Broome as having the most overwhelming of all killjoy signs (left).

Most golf courses I play on have signs around in summer warning where snakes have been sighted or are known to be active. OK, thanks for that, but really, no golfer is going to shove their hand into the undergrowth to retrieve a ball unless they can see it and know that it's not being guarded by something that might bite them and kill them (unless it's an $8 Pro V1 then bugger the snakes, we'll take our chances).

I'm no fan of the nanny state. I am, however, a fan of personal accountability. We all make our choices - some of them are dumb. Yes, occasionally an accident occurs that actually is the result of third party negligence, and in those cases compensation is usually negotiated out of court.

But where an incident resulting in catastrophic injuries is the fault of the person who made the choice (statistically, according to SafeWork Australia, these are usually men aged 18-30), shifting accountability on to a local authority sends all the wrong messages and results in (a) visual clutter and (b) a burgeoning insurance industry; (c) lawyers getting richer.  

Unfortunately, no amount of signage or lack thereof would have saved the lives of those who died in the road accidents here earlier this year. One was a tragic misjudgement and the other was a medical episode. In total, five people died in two separate accidents. More signs won't stop those sorts of accidents happening but less visual clutter on the roads might assist drivers to focus on the road and not the roadside.

Finally, my favourite sign of all time ...

 Yes, people really are that stupid.