Old Signpost, Bents

Image: © Ian Dodds Taken: 10 Oct 2022

I have no idea how old this signpost is, but its black/gold-on-black design obviously wasn't aimed at motorists (then again, maybe paint has fallen off bits of it over time). West Lothian, unlike some other parts of Scotland (and most parts of England, from what I have seen) has very few remaining old distance signposts. There are no longer official signposts giving distances as accurately as this; presumably this is because signposts today are designed for the motorist, as opposed to walkers, cyclists on heavy old bikes, and people on horseback, for whom an eighth of a mile was a quantifiable distance in terms of time taken to cover the ground. Our current roadsigns follow a design brought in in the mid 1960s, precipitated by the advent of the motorways and, unlike this old sign, they never have a slash, or bar if you like, between the numbers in the fraction. This was apparently done to avoid clutter on the new roadsigns increasing the time taken by motorists to process the information conveyed. It is often claimed that UK roadsigns are the only places you will see a fraction officially depicted without a line dividing the two numbers.

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