1960 British Road Signs

I scanned this lot in from the Royal Automobile Club Guide and Handbook from 1960. These are just a sampling of the signs found on British Roadways in 1960.  GB was not quite up to using the European standard(this happened in 1965), but they were using symbols at this time, and the triangle for hazard indication, as well as the triangle-in-circle STOP indication, so visitors from the Continent prolly woulda been able to dope stuff out.

The guidebook had 3 pages of signs for motorways, since the first significant section of the M1 motorway opened in December 1959. These signs were blue.  The M1 was not the first motorway to open in Britain-that honor goes to the Preston Bypass, part of the M6, which opened in 1958. The M1 was very similar to a NY parkway, it had rather narrow lanes, no hard shoulders, and the central resevation had no barrier-a situation which the Ministry of Transport had to change, as cars kept getting mired in the verges. There was also no speed limit-which also changed quickly after some madman was caught doing warp 9 in a Jaguar. The Hemel Hempstead junction is now the A414 freeway-it's junction 8. The junction shown on the second sign(the one with the roundabout) is now the southeast end of the M10-which is all of 3 miles long.

Here's a map of the M1. Now, the section running northwesterly of Crick(at the top of the map) is the M45. The spur going to St. Albans is now the M10. Neither of those freeways has gotten any longer. Just an editorial comment-the symbol for the M1 looks more like a railway than a freeway.