As seen on Highway 1 in the South Island of New Zealand this month, we need the same thing placed every mile of our Highway 1 in Big Sur! Please post on your blog for all drivers to see. Thanks, Alan Buchwald, Weston Ridge Road (BTW, NZ’s Highway One on the South Island is a lot like ours, including slides that close it off for a year at a time.)
Please, no more signs on the highway. Especially yellow ones. Nobody obeys signs. Plodding tourists ignore the several well-marked special turnouts, impatient locals (and thier commuting workers) ignore the speed limit signs, campers sleep at the posted No Camping spots. Signs are a blight on the view. Too many already. Try relaxing. What’s the hurry? Travel during non-tourist hours.
CA Highway 1 has these signs up by Moss Landing. I have seen them when going to Santa Cruz. They say “5 or more cars behind you? Pull over and let them pass!” It would be nice if they brought these farther South to the Big Sur area. Please make it happen! 🙂
-Ernest (Pam’s co-worker)
From the South Coast, when are the non-tourist hours? During a storm, perhaps??
https://bigsurkate.blog
How about posting a sign a half mile before each turnout? Would not want to see this sign every mile as it would distract from the beauty of this drive and might tempt drivers to pull over in unsafe areas.
There already ARE signs before the turnouts announcing them and telling slow traffic to use them.
There are already new(ish) signs on 1 in Big Sur approaching the official pullouts informing drivers informing drivers that there is a pullout ahead and then followed by a “Slow vehicles with 5 or more following vehicles must use turn-out”. They don’t seem to have made any difference to driver behavior.
While the NZ signs are definitely better (quicker to read, simpler to comprehend) and having more of them would definitely help too, I think there’s another aspect to this that should be considered, namely that English is not the first language of many driving down the coast these days.
One thing that I remember from growing up in the UK, and was reminded of again when I got to drive 1 in NZ a couple of years ago is that a lot more signs are graphical in nature, not textual. Here in the US, so many more signs are just textual – here we have “Men (sic) at work”, there, they have a stick figure using a shovel warning of impending workers.
I wonder if we could come up with a graphical, comprehendible sign that would speak to everyone driving down the coast, not just those with English as their first language? Maybe other countries already have and we could borrow their design?
Amen on the NZ sign! I don’t mind “relaxing” and enjoying the view on my drive. But being behind someone who drives the entire route at 40MPH except when they brake to 20 for turns or suddenly accelerate to 60 whenever you get to a passing zone (so that nobody can pass them), or someone who is driving slowly while simultaneously filming themself using a selfie stick (which I see WAY TOO OFTEN), is not very relaxing. Anyone driving on any single lane road should, as a matter of courtesy, move over (when it is safe to do so) for people behind them who want to go faster, it’s not their job to enforce what they believe to be the correct speed.
Good idea, Tim
https://bigsurkate.blog
Amen, Jean. My thoughts exactly.
My brother-in-law was pulled over by CHP on the very windy section of the road between Carmel Valley and Highway 101 and lectured that if he were to go this slow on Highway One he would get a ticket. He was driving a large SUV. So even the cops can’t get it straight, signs or no signs.
Although I think this is a great idea, I’d rather not see one every mile on the coast.
common sense and common courtesy should cover this but apparently neither is very common. people who would never consider clogging an aisle in a grocery store or a sidewalk while walking somehow loose all perspective when driving. I’m not sure new signs would change much, perhaps better drivers training, perhaps better parenting, but that horse has left the barn.
I am actually quite looking forward to self-driving cars for this particular issue.
Traffic psychology is a very well study subject, ‘Best Practice’ is defined by those practices that have been verified by field research and are peer reviewed before adoption, one of the results is signs actually cause accidents, the basics of all study results are…SLOW DOWN & DO THE MATH, your chance of survival in any automobile crash over 40mph is 50/50, its physics.
In automotive manufacturing you typically have 4 main groups, engineering, styling, accounting and government, these groups have many sub groups, it is the job of the principle engineer in the NVH-SQ group (noice, vibration, harshness, sound quality) to create the ‘in-car experiance’ Their job is to disguise the fact you are driving in a tin casket.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_psychology
Kate, I just tested your friendly challenge (above). Sunday’s town run at 11am took but 51 minutes for the 39 miles Hot Springs to Rio Road. One fellow hippie traveler in a VW van let me pass at Mule Canyon. Then we joined a long parade at Garrapata but kept moving. Plus, KZSC 88.1 comes on there, which I look forward to. 51 minutes seems typical and reasonable. Math says that is 45mph average. Came back at 5pm in 50 minutes. Nobody going our direction. Plus, to confirm that few read or cares about signs, rules, and such (even when bright yellow): a typical idiot was doing a three-point U-turn at the JPB blind curve. There are freshly painted Double-Double yellow lines there…aside from everything else wrong with that stunt.
Not the solution! Max Speed limit should be 50 mph not 55 mph except for point sur straight away which should stay at 55mph with “passing lanes” at point sur and designated pullouts if more than 7 cars behind you every several miles (you have to be real careful with these signs because road rage can ensue if the slow car is not pulling over and can cause more reckless drivers trying to pass when they shouldn’t!). Im finding the locals are actually driving more dangerous than the tourist lately with wanting to drive 65+mph and passing on double yellows. I feel like Big Sur highway 1 is the most uncomfortable road in the West to drive now with either slow tourist or overly anxious locals. I think we all need to just be patient while driving and enjoy the cruise because its not gonna get any better with how popular Central California has become. Just wait till mud creek opens if you think this year is bad!