Signs hidden by foliage becoming more common?

[Somewhatfoolish]

I am pretty convinced that in the last decade signs being hidden by foliage has become significantly more common than it used to be. Since they're often speed limit signs, this could potentially have consequences.

However, it could be my brain playing tricks on me. Has anyone else noticed this?

[MikeM6]

I have noticed many more obscured signs, including signs obscured by other signs occasionally.

[PH User]

There are more road signs than there used to be, so yeah more are hidden than there used to be.

[DaveE87]

Councils clearly haven't been doing enough recently regarding foliage - I'm sure covid will get the blame. All greenery local to me has been allowed to overgrow, to the point that it's becoming dangerous on the approach to some roundabouts as the grass is way too high to get visibility on the approach. Some signs are completely hidden too.

[Andeh1]

How about that, not 6 hours ago I walked up the road with my hedge cutter as the 30mph sign on one side was fully buried in the hedge!

[dhutch]

Government funding cuts hitting council budgets maybe? Although I can't say I've noticed a difference.

[paradigital]

Not only signage but other road furniture as well. I know of at least two Gatsos that wouldn't be able to take a photo of anything other than leaves.

[Cliftonite]

paradigital said:

Not only signage but other road furniture as well. I know of at least two Gatsos that wouldn't be able to take a photo of anything other than leaves.

[Pica-Pica]

One thing I did learn on a speed awareness course, was that the law is changing for the number of speed limit signs needed to make the speed limit valid. I was told this was because so many were being stolen as birthday ‘presents’.

[brisel]

Dorset County Council stopped spending on hedge cutting and splashed the funds on a full time person to trawl the Land Register and send snotty letters to the owners of the land alongside the roads to tell them to trim the hedges back instead.

I had 3 lads spend 2 days twice a year hand trimming around signs each year on the farm I used to manage, all with high vis and a road work course. Most of the neighbouring farmers didn’t bother.

[PH User]

brisel said:

Dorset County Council stopped spending on hedge cutting and splashed the funds on a full time person to trawl the Land Register and send snotty letters to the owners of the land alongside the roads to tell them to trim the hedges back instead.

I had 3 lads spend 2 days twice a year hand trimming around signs each year on the farm I used to manage, all with high vis and a road work course. Most of the neighbouring farmers didn’t bother.

Sounds sensible, I bet paying 1 person to send out letters is an awful lot cheaper than paying teams to go out cutting hedges.

[bristolracer]

The weather doesn't help
When you get showers and then sunshine, the foliage will put on growth spurts

[eldrich]

I bet the ban on people (farmers) not cutting hedges during spring/summer has an effect on this too. We used to trim the hedges back and make sure the signs could be seen, not not being able to trim until Sept 1st I think it is means we don't do it until them when the growth has already blocked the sign for months.

[covboy]

eldrich said:

I bet the ban on people (farmers) not cutting hedges during spring/summer has an effect on this too. We used to trim the hedges back and make sure the signs could be seen, not not being able to trim until Sept 1st I think it is means we don't do it until them when the growth has already blocked the sign for months.

I've recently started a regular journey from the Midlands toMid Wales, and have commented on how much of the route has neat and tidy hedges all apparently recently cut and trimmed. So far we've only passed about two instances of the work being carried out (all midweek)

[anonymous-user]

DaveE87 said:

.. to the point that it's becoming dangerous on the approach to some roundabouts as the grass is way too high to get visibility on the approach....

That may even be deliberate. Many roundabout entries now have hedging or boarding purposely installed, forcing car drivers to slow to a crawl before joining. Kinda defeats the idea of the roundabout somewhat - or maybe just that 'nanny state' intervening!

[Centurion07]

280E said:

DaveE87 said:

.. to the point that it's becoming dangerous on the approach to some roundabouts as the grass is way too high to get visibility on the approach....

That may IS deliberate. Many roundabout entries now have hedging or boarding purposely installed, forcing car drivers to slow to a crawl before joining. Kinda defeats the idea of the roundabout somewhat - or maybe just that 'nanny state' intervening!

[jimmytheone]

Quite a few road signs near me (herts) are either buried in undergrowth, flipped by 180* or missing. This irks me particularly because I’m close to the 30/40/de-res changes and the side road jcn onto the main road is on the inside of a bend so visibility isn’t great.
Result?
Too many wkers doing 60+ or even the 40mph everywhere brigade means pulling out on to the main road is dicey.
The police don’t seem to care, concentrating only on the other (posh) end of town to ticket speeders because “there’s somewhere safe to pull them over”.
WTF?! If I do 95 and get pinged by a camera they don’t pull me over they just send a ticket...

I suspect the foliage/sign combo is the council running out of money (see also only cutting part verges “for the wildlife”)

[Centurion07]

jimmytheone said:

Quite a few road signs near me (herts) are either buried in undergrowth, flipped by 180* or missing. This irks me particularly because I’m close to the 30/40/de-res changes and the side road jcn onto the main road is on the inside of a bend so visibility isn’t great.
Result?
Too many wkers doing 60+ or even the 40mph everywhere brigade means pulling out on to the main road is dicey.
The police don’t seem to care, concentrating only on the other (posh) end of town to ticket speeders because “there’s somewhere safe to pull them over”.
WTF?! If I do 95 and get pinged by a camera they don’t pull me over they just send a ticket...

I suspect the foliage/sign combo is the council running out of money (see also only cutting part verges “for the wildlife”)

Personally, if I felt it was that dangerous I'd be out there giving it a little trim myself.

[LukeBrown66]

It's a bloody scandal as far as I am concerned, a lot of times some signs are completely covered by foliage. Not EVERYONE in the world needs or wants to use effin satnav ( I like to keep my eyes and mind 100% on the road thanks) and we need those signs as a reminder or confirmation of a turn.

And why? Coz the council would rather spend money putting up hundreds of sets of traffic lights for health and safety around road works for a week before anyone does anything, buy property at massive levels, and in my case spend money on pointless glamour projects that don't help anyone locally but look good on a brochure.

What will happen is the same as with cleaning, litter etc, they will shove it down the line to volunteer local groups who will do it for free.

When in reality what needs to happen is accidents, so someone can blame the council for not tidying and sue the bds for total and utter depravation of their duties as a council.

They bh endlessly about health and safety and tie themselves in knots about it yet here we have a massive H&S issue yet no one does anything.

We have footprints in our park showing us how far two metres is FFS!! That would clean up about 30 road signs no doubt.

[MikeM6]

LukeBrown66 said:

...And why? Coz the council would rather spend money putting up hundreds of sets of traffic lights for health and safety around road works for a week before anyone does anything...

Not sure that is the council at work there.

I sense you are not a fan of your local authority or of health and safety measures?