06/18/2026
Driver and Traffic Safety Signs are Not B-Roll
When it comes to highway navigation, signs on the roadway are, to use social-media language, "A-roll," that is, part of the main production, and not just "B-roll," or ancillary footage, and I'd like to make a case for that.
Let's take two of the most common signs we see while driving: Yield and Merge.
What does it mean to Yield? What does it mean to Merge? Believe it or not, these all-too-often seemingly insignificant signs are in fact amazing powerhouses of information, harbingers of defense, and heralds of safety. And all we have to do to draw upon their beneifts is to watch for them, pay attention to their message, and implement their direction. That is, if we understand exactly why they are there and how their messges should be applied in each and every different circumstance--not necessarily such an easy task since each time we see them, it will invariably be in a completely different yet somewhat similar setting than the one before. Sound confusing? That's because it is!
And then there's the problem of not knowing exactly what their names mean. Some of them are simple, easy to understand: "Pedestrian Crossing," "One Way," "No Right on Red," all self explanatory.
But other signs not so much. Some of these others were actually named and defined somewhere in the range of the 1950s and '60s when they came into common use as part of standardized U.S. highway signage due to the growth of interstate highways, freeway entrance ramps, and more complicated and intricate roadway systems overall.
This creates somewhat of a difficulty for us now, because there is no doubt that our English language has evolved somewhat since then even if only slightly. So for words such as "yield," for example, there is definitly a variance between its usage back then and now. Back then, I imagine the word "yield" came into play rather often since our culture was more agrarian, and "yielding" crops and plants was a more common part of life. "Yield" is also somwhat of a formal word, in the sense that back then, someone might have been apt to say that he would "yield" to another person's request, whereas today, we would simply say, "I'll go with that," or "That sounds great," etc.
"Merge" too can create a difficulty because, again, back when it was used to define a very particular maneuver for roadway safety, the word may have been more common. Now, however, just off the top of my head, I cannot think of any circumstance in which I would use the word "merge" other than in terms related specifically to finance (e.g., corporate mergers) or business (e.g., merging documents).
All of this, to make the simple point that some of the words we see on signage today can be confusing and that that fact can be terribly problematic in both very small and very large ways. Small ways, okay, an exit is missed, a minute or two of time is lost, but the large ways are clearly and tragically outlined here in the 2024 Traffic Crash Facts released by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles Highway Safety Office. You'll see, especially on Pages 15 and 18 in this document, that "Failure to Yield" and "Incorrect Lane Changing (or Merging)" are responsible for a tragically large number of accidents and fatalities each year.
So what is the solution? Changing the names of all the signs? Perhaps yes, maybe that's something to think about over the long term, and it would certainly take a very, very long time to implement any changes like that and then see those changes take life through replalcement of allllll the signs on alllll the roads in America. So for now, let's move to other ideas. And one of those ideas, it seems to me, is to simply educate people better on the meaning and the actual definition of these words and how they relate to traffic safety in real time, today.
So the first thing I can say is that "Signs are not B-roll." In other words, each and every sign is placed for a very, very specific reason. Each and every sign has a message that, when heeded, can save a person's life or many people's lives.
For now, we're focusing on teaching people what "Yield" and "Merge" mean. We think those signs are two of the most problemative, and the Virginia Crash Facts mentioned above bears this out. And one of the first things we thought we'd do is take the definition as it relates to highway navigation and place it smack dab on the kitchen table, right where we cannot miss it each day, in a way that will cause it to be related to almost every adult American's favorite pasttime: drinking coffee.
So we've developed our Signs of Safety coffee mugs to educate and inform drivers both experienced and new about these small, metal, otherwise rather inconspicuous pieces of information which seem to line, dot, and even crowd and clultter the highway, each one calling to us to pay attention, heed their warnings, and ultimately arrive at each and every one of our destinations safely, soundly, and securely.
An A-roll endeavor for sure.
https://ashburndrivingschool.com/blog%2Fyoutube/f/signs-are-not-b-roll
