Border speed limits (and road category) signs

[hofburg]

is this photo taken somewhere around here? http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...01.38,,0,-8.35

[Zagor666]

I am not 100% sure cause the picture is from 2002 but i belive its on the E46 just a few km´s after the belgian-france border direction Bouillon -> Sedan

[ChrisZwolle]

That picture has been taken on the E46/E44 interchange just east of Sedan.

[hofburg]

then I didn't look at the right direction.

[Zagor666]

Slovenija(2003) border crossing at the Korensko Sedlo

[Ingenioren]

[ChrisZwolle]

Denmark 1979:

[nerdly_dood]

So I gather that Norway and Slovenia require headlights on all the time?

[Penn's Woods]

Originally Posted by nerdly_dood

So I gather that Norway and Slovenia require headlights on all the time?

Canada's been requiring cars sold there to be equipped with daytime running lights (people driving older cars, or Americans, don't actually have to turn their lights on) for a good 20 years now. And I happened to be in Canada when this law was going into effect and remember an article mentioning that it was already required in Sweden. Since then, I began noticing Saabs and Volvos in the US with running lights on in the daytime and I assumed that's because they followed the Swedish requirement. And what's true in Sweden may well be true in Norway....

Several months ago, yours truly started a thread, with a title something like "lights on in the daytime," after coming home from a drive into your neck of the woods and finding that both Virginia and Maryland were requiring lights to be turned on on stretches of US 15 between Leesburg and Frederick. Second place in this country I'd seen that, the first being a stretch of US 1 near Bel Air, Md. (northeast of Baltimore), where the signs requiring lights to be on appeared about two years ago. Judging from the responses to that thread - if I'm remembering right - running-light requirements seem to be fairly widespread in Europe now.

EDIT: here's that thread - http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1170909

[Alex Von Königsberg]

I noticed that ~50% of the cars on the road in California have lights on during the daylight hours even though there is no such requirement in place. Actually, as far as I know, most newer cars sold in North America have a slot for a DRL relay. I assume in Canada this relay is already in place when you buy a car, whereas in the USA you just need to buy one. I did that for my Ford Focus in 2005 and drive with DRL ever since.

Back to the OP: I really like simple ones like in Germany or France. I would like to see something like this in the USA when driving between states, but since there is no concept of pictographs here, I guess they would have to spell out "urban", "rural" and "freeway"

[Penn's Woods]

New Jersey has signs at the state lines - at some points; it's not systematic or consistent - showing the default speed limits. Can't find one on line....

[Zagor666]

Originally Posted by ChrisZwolle

Denmark 1979:

60 in Cities and 100 on motorways,thats a bad joke

[ChrisZwolle]

Before the 1960's, many countries did not have a special speed limit for motorways as few regular passenger cars could exceed 120 km/h anyway. Many countries imposed speed limits in the 1970's, and this was often 100 km/h with the two oil crises fresh in mind. Mind you that Denmark had a 110 km/h motorway speed limit until 2004.

[TheCat]

Originally Posted by Alex Von Königsberg

I noticed that ~50% of the cars on the road in California have lights on during the daylight hours even though there is no such requirement in place. Actually, as far as I know, most newer cars sold in North America have a slot for a DRL relay. I assume in Canada this relay is already in place when you buy a car, whereas in the USA you just need to buy one. I did that for my Ford Focus in 2005 and drive with DRL ever since.

Back to the OP: I really like simple ones like in Germany or France. I would like to see something like this in the USA when driving between states, but since there is no concept of pictographs here, I guess they would have to spell out "urban", "rural" and "freeway"

Do the default urban and rural speed limits actually differ between the different states? I'm actually not sure whether they do in Canada, though I sort of always assumed that the 50 km/h and 80 km/h, respectively, apply in all of Canada and not just Ontario (where I learned to drive).

Also - does the US have a default freeway/motorway speed limit? As far as I know this exists in neither the US nor Canada, and speed limits always have to be signed (this is also why we don't really have a standard "freeway begins" and "freeway ends" sign). In Ontario, for example, as a general rule, all 400-series highways have a limit of 100 km/h (with specific sections having different lower limits), but there still are always speed limit signs, and I don't remember learning anywhere in the traffic rules about an explicit default freeway limit.

[Penn's Woods]

Speed limits are set by state law in the U.S. (except during that absurd nationwide 55 mph of the '70s and '80s). There are definitely default limits in New Jersey. If there are default limits in Pennsylvania, I don't know them, and I ought to. [blushes]

EDIT: Found this. You can read it now; I'll read it later. And I've got some teacher's voice in my head warning me this is a "secondary source," but you can say the same think about anything in Wikipedia.... http://www.mit.edu/~jfc/laws.html

EDIT 2: Talking of things in Wikipedia.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_l..._United_States

[ChrisZwolle]

Originally Posted by ChrisZwolle

Denmark 1979:

Apparently, this is nearly the same location, according to the Panoramio location. E47 near Rødbyhavn.

[Slagathor]

Notice that "110" sign spoiling the fun mere seconds after entering the country

[x-type]

what does this P-disc at 80es sign mean? i guess it is something for parking and i saw it on each Italian car, but i never knew the purpose of that thing.

[g.spinoza]

It's called "disco orario" in Italy (hour disc). Many parkings in Italy are free for, say, an hour, so when you arrive you rotate the disc on your windshield to match the time you parked. Policemen come later and, if the time marked on your disco orario is more than a hour ago, give you a nice ticket.

I saw them in Germany too.

[ChrisZwolle]

Yes, they are common in many European countries.

It's a way to regulate parking without having to pay for parking. It's usually found in smaller town centers where you don't want long-term parking but when you do want to offer short-term parking for quick shopping, visiting, etc.