Posted on by B Spokes

End “Share The Road”

Bike Delaware has asked the Delaware Department of Transportation to discontinue its use of the “Share The Road” sign. Here’s why.

If you have any comments of your own on the “Share The Road” sign, either positive or negative, please make them in the comments section below. After a week, Bike Delaware will collect any and all comments and forward them to DelDOT.

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… As a marketing campaign, the phrase’s ambiguity also invites conflicting interpretations. …

https://www.bikede.org/2013/08/19/end-share-the-road/

And related: “SHARE THE ROAD” [STILL] Stinks…

From the Washcycle Is it time to retire “Share the Road”?

From NHTSA NHTSA says “Share The Road Sign” sends mixed messages

[B’ Spokes: I noticed on my return that Baltimore has put in a lot more “Bikes Share the Road” signs, as it it is cyclists and only cyclists have the responsibility to share the road. Our Director of Bicycle and Pedestrian Access thinks I’m just being silly as nowhere else are two signs always mounted together that are meant to be read together. To that I raise my glass and toast the sign that is meant to be read on it’s own “To Traffic in Circle.” ]

3 Replies to “End “Share The Road””

  1. Hi Barry,
    He means that when two signs are placed together, one should not read the second signs as a command addressed to the thing addressed to the first, as if a colon connected the two. Rather the signs should be read as a sentence.
    If you put the tractor sign, it is similarly not a command to tractors. Anyway, if it was a command it toils be a white rectangle and include the word must or should.
    That said, some drivers do misread the sign that way. SHA no longer posts share the road unless the lanes see wide enough to share side by side.

  2. So we have a situation where in effect "Among those that know all there is about road signs "Bikes Share The Road" is not a legitimate reading." – The problem is the typical road user has no such training. – Signs should be free of ambiguity as read by the layman.
    There is a bit of a problem with all the localities adopting different standards, for example AA County uses share the road signs when cyclists lose the shoulder. That is, there is no longer extra room for the cyclist (such as for a turn lane.) This seems to be the exact opposite of SHA’s standard, that sounds confusing to me.

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