Changing signs

Signs warning drivers of the risks of animal accidents are an important element of the awareness raising programme to reduce the number of casualties in the New Forest. However, there are two important issues that underlie the current signage policy.

First, it is easy to overestimate the effectiveness of signs. The evidence shows that most animal accidents are caused by local drivers who drive along the same roads regularly – often several times a week. They are likely to have seen both the signs and the grazing animals very many times.

Second, even the best signs detract from the open, natural landscape that everyone values.

The ideal balance is probably:

• not to have too many signs (so each one stands out)
• keep the signs simple and direct (so they are easy to understand)
• locate signs where the danger is greatest (at entrances to areas with animals and at the start of high risk routes)
• to change the high risk route signs regularly to catch the eye of local people.

Hampshire County Council is the Highway Authority responsible for signs on the public highway throughout the area where commoners’ animals graze. It has a countywide programme of sign rationalisation (looking at all road signs, not just those warning of animal accidents). As part of this programme, the New Forest’s very large and complicated shield-shaped warning signs, and the obtrusive yellow and black signs, are being reviewed. These old signs may have helped when they were first installed, but accidents continue to occur on these routes and many are damaged or worn.

The B3054, between Lymington and Dibden Purlieu, has been chosen as a trial route for replacement of these signs: in September 2010, nine signs were taken down, and four signs that will be changed four times a year were put up. This 7 mile (11km) stretch of road is one of the worst routes in the Forest for animal accidents. In each of the years between 2005 and 2009, between 25 and 35 animals were involved in traffic accidents along the B3054, 152 in total. There were 22 accidents in the first nine months of 2010, so the average was 30.3 animal accidents each year between January 2005 and September 2010. The total of animals either killed outright or destroyed because of their injuries was 79, giving an average of 13.7 deaths per year.

During the following year (October 2010 – September 2011) there were 22 animal accidents resulting in 10 deaths (compared to the averages of 30.3 and 13.7 above). These initial results are very encouraging and suggest that the changing signs are having a positive effect.

The plan is to give the trial a second year before decisions are made about the permanence of the new signs and about any changes to signage on other high risk routes across the Forest.