ABSOLUTELY STUPID & USELESS TRAFFIC SIGNS (Honest Guide)
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 27. 02. 2021
- So, when our city decided to get rid of segway and touristic beer bikes, they had to create a zone to ban them. But to create a zone, you must put the sign to every possible entry point to the city. And so this happened...
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The signs that always make me laugh are on banks in Prague. "No Ice Cream Cones and Guns Allowed".
So, in other words: I can bring my gun, as long as I leave my ice cream at home? đđ«đŠ
@@djm5687.... Or I can bring my ice-cream along so long I can leave my (non existent) gun at home
Prague, and any city for that matter, would look a lot better with less signage. It is definitely an eye sore. Good video. Thanks!
Praha would look better without sprayed historical buildings and city center. Signage is the least problem of any.
@@mravecsk1 but the city does not spray buildingsâŠ
@@mravecsk1 yes, agree 100%
@@acceleratedsloth such a czech reply :D
Sign: âNo bikes wider than 1.2mâ
Me: *measures my bike* Phew, just about
Does that include the human on it? I have seen some who were approaching the limit. especially in winter.
Bike is bicycle and bicycle means "two wheels". A beer car has 4 wheels.
@@robfriedrich2822 So cargo bikes and 3 wheeled bikes aren't bikes?
People forget about the "no parking there rules" and just stop wherever they can fit the car. Putting a vertical sign is also made for the authorities - "hey man, there is a sign saying You cannot park here, get Your ticket". We have the same problem in Poland.
Yes in most normal jurisdictions it is required that such local regulations be signposted in the areas where they apply before they can attempt to enforce them. As such only some of the signs here seem genuinely useless mostly those no parking ones in areas where national law already makes it clear that is not allowed anyway. Frankly anyone that thinks it is a good idea to go about an activity an activity as dangerous as driving without familiarising themselves with the inevitable regulations that come alone with that is asking for trouble anyway.
You should see cycle path signs in many villages all over the Republic. Tens of signs per kilometer, as every single time a drive way a to a house and side roads cross the cycle path, there has to be the end of the zone sign and then, after about 2-3 meters the start of the zone sign. This goes on every 5-10 meters.
I live in Vienna and we also have an abundance of useless traffic signs (just google: "wien schilderwald"). When I walk past these signs I always think to myself that they are there for a reason, which is simply that one of the decision makers has a friend with a sign factory. Most of these signs could easily be replaced with street marks.
On my many European travels I got the impression that Czech Republic, Austria and Germany share the culture of overregulation of everything. It's like we are not able to cross the street without a special law, sign and two copies of a stamped form đ
I guess one factor to take into consideration is if the street gets covered by snow in the winter.
UK just made segways and beer bikes illegal on ALL roads, this no signs
why though?
@@warmike They are deemed by the authorities as being to unsafe for use on the road and segways are also too dangerous for usage on the pavement.
@@adamwoodhouse5356 why not make them equal to bicycles (bicycle lanes if there are such, curb otherwise)
@@warmike not saything what I would do. Thats just what the lawmakers decided.
@@warmike Also, for interest, as you implied bikes can go on the footpath... "Bicycles are considered vehicles under British law and is illegal to ride a bike on a pavement which has not been designated as a cycle way." Thus bokes go on the roads or designated cycle paths, most roads do not have designated cycle paths.
Hey, halfczech from Vienna here!
You need something like we have in Vienna: If someone parks in a spot, where he blocks legal traffic, he get's towed, pretty. The fine is pretty hefty, PLUS the owner has to pay an extra for the towing, PLUS the owner hs to pay for every day the car is in the towing depository.
BONUS: The Depository is on the Outskirts of Vienna, in Simmering, where only one busline connects to the city, but to get there you'd have to take at least three different routes. Its not the end of the world, but you can see it from there,...
Edit: The fining is not done by the police (allthough they can do it too, if they are bored) its mainly done by "parksherrifs" who enforece parking in the whole city now. (2022)
3:08 Adam Gebrian moment
Love you! I'm just finishing my masters thesis on this issue in Ljubljana!
Two get rich quick ideas: 1. Start a business in Prague making street signs - 2. Invent an app that removes all signage from your smartphone pictures of beautiful Prague
Btw nice to see Lokal (the one near the Charles Bridge) featured in one clip. My wife, teenage kids and I saw you guys outside there in July â19 when meeting up with us Honest Guide fans
the City may start a new tourist attraction/competition: take as many selfies as possible beside these useless signs (each month a dfferent one).
Or a "treasure hunt": find the street with 50 different signs of which 3 of this and 5 of that :-)
And another layer of it: find 20 cars parked under the sign that prohibits parking.
@@iliaponomarev1624 It's easy :D
road to 1 million.... you deserve it guys!
Signs do not stop people from parking but enable the city for ticketing. You misunderstood the purpose. :)
He did not exactly meant that, he just though that less signs can be used to cover the streets saying the same
4:52 I audibly laughed at the bit where he shows that the council has clamped cars to stop them from being there. WHICH IS ONLY GONNA KEEP THEM THERE FOR LONGER! This is classic laziness by the authorities xD
Otherwise they would have to put up a sign that wrongly parked cars can be towed away...
And for the tickets: well, it is a nice system ;-) I parked in a zone once (yes, my bad, only one sign that it was a zone for residents, not on every corner or street) and got clamped twice (!). Besides the fine for the city I had to pay for 2 clamps to be removed to the company that did the clamping.
I guess the reason for extra signs is that you need to be clear for tourists (like me) ;-)
the clampers also has the purpose of telling other potential parkers that it isnât such a good idea.
There is a point when there are so many signs that drivers just cannot keep up with them and ignore them, or just do not notice them. Especially in the city center where you have to pay attention to other cars, pedestrian, public transport, it is really hard to keep up with signs, that are often just behind a corner and quite high because they are on top of other signs...
Anyway, quite surprisingly, in a lot of cases less signs makes roads safer. Though probably does not stop people from parking wherever:p
Love your channel. I will visit Prague one day just because of you.
I'll take this as a sign and subscribe. I can't see I would ever get to your part of the world, but fun to learn about it nonetheless!! Thanks!
Sign pollution. We see it everyday. And we don't see it at all. Thanks guides.
"Sign prohibiting segways on a highway." ThatÂŽs a great name for a song.
As someone who has to enforce parking rules, let me tell you one reason for having more signs than you technically need. A law being in place doesn't automatically make it efficient to enforce. If you tell a person they can't park in a spot and are able to point (in person or later in court) to a sign that was right in front of the person's face, it makes things much easier. Even if they eventually lose the argument, having a ridiculous argument in person and in court over every single traffic violation is a greater drain on the city than merely putting up a sign every single place a rule is applicable. If people could be trusted to just follow rules without so many ridiculous signs, their wouldn't be so many of them.
It is like when seeing absurd numbers of safety warnings all over a piece of equipment means you can be sure they only exist because someone was actually dumb enough to hurt themselves in exactly such a dumb way...when you see an overabundance of signage, that's because you have a population that apparently requires it. The tall anti-taxi sign is a good example of what I mean.
You should have visited the Ăjezd nad Lesy district. We literally have a signage company here and the signs just keep changing. Every half a year the main roads and side roads switch places. And the oh-so-many zone signs everywhere here!
My first meal in Prague was at the Lokal at 2:54. Great food!
Hi! It would be nice if you made a video about Prague's districts (i don't know if are called districts but i mean Prague 1, 2, 3, etc.). Love you guys! David from Buenos Aires, Argentina!
4:17
That's because that's not the purpose of those signs. They aren't there to stop people, they're there so that when people are brought to court, they can't say that they didn't see a sign.
But there does not even have to be a sign, the thing is illegal by itself. And moreover most of these signs are not even placed according to the laws so they are not even legally binding
@@acceleratedsloth What you said does not refute my point.
Amazing genuine video
I am not from Prague bro! But I have a eager to visit just bcoz of you as you honest guide of Czech Republic is just awesome coming next month!
Cool!
Thanks for this. I see this in Montreal as well. So much effort to regulate the movement and storage of cars. Iâm tired of it.
Posledni dobou tezko hledam nejake vase video, ktere bych mohl pustit pratelum, abych jim ukazal, jak je Praha krasna a super. Diky alespon za ty streamy.
Hey Yanek we need more cooking videos with Honza
Wonderful, not only in Germany the Office-Horse is neighing :)
The parking sign are useful for winter when road markings are not visible.
3:06 there is 3 meteres space for another car and there is point in putting those 2 signs there. It's one way street and no-stopping sign prevents from stopping on that side of the road where it stands - so you need two of them.
ĐĐ±ĐŸĐ¶Đ°Ń ĐČĐ°Ń ĐșĐ°ĐœĐ°Đ», ŃпаŃĐžĐ±ĐŸ Đ·Đ° ŃŃŃĐŽ! Thanks a lot for you work!
You should come to India - Mumbai ... You'll go crazy seeing the madness here .. lol
Prague.- Too many useless traffic signs
Indian cities-doesn't abide in traffic rules, thats why there is heavy traffic
We used to have these parking issues in my home town as well, until one day the municipality decided that they'd stop clamping cars and instead would just tow them. But not just tow them anywhere, no tow them to an impound lot in the next municipality over, on the outskirts of an industrial estate where public transit only gets to on work days between 6-9h and 15-18h.
And at that point they'd stack a bunch of fines on top of each other, which at the time was 160 euro for "parking which obstructs traffic", 400 euro for towing costs and 60 euro per day that the car was kept in storage. With the storage fee being per-whole-day only.
Also the office of the towing company where you could go and pick up your car again was only open during office hours and from 9-12h in the weekends.
So not only is it incredibly expensive to get your car towed like this, it's also incredibly inconvenient to have to go and collect it.
4:50 Mark - The car you pointed out for parking in an area that would have been used for flow around the tram... It's got a parking boot on the left rear wheel. That car isn't going anywhere. I wonder why it was booted.
Even tough, your city is beautiful!
This is the reason I'm practically blind to all these signs in Prague :D
Lovely when you do driver license in Prague center, and on final drive throught one of roads like this, the comisar asks you which signs did you just passed :D
I completely understand your point of view on signage, in a historic city with such beautiful architecture and views in general it does feel like the signage and temporary traffic placements detract from the ambiance of the city. Each time I'm in Edinburgh proper I'm always ashamed at the tackiness of a lot of aspects of our so called "historic" city. But to play devil's advocate, if those signs and such weren't there, things would be 10x worse than they are now. Look at Amsterdam before they blanket banned Vehicles from parking in most central areas, a night and day difference.
Basically cars ruin everything.
Great video
I don't know if it is like that in Prague, but in Vienna clamps on cars are often used temporarily until the car is towed. Because if the towing company already has a car on their truck they need to bring that one away and return or call another truck for the next one. Clamp/Tow fines are much higher than just parking tickets, and also annoying, so if the people know that this might happen to them they're more likely not to park there, otherwise especially rich people don't care about parking tickets.
Also legally it's more easy to give people an administrative fine for not obeying the parking sign, than to charge them with parking that's against the traffic laws. In some countries and cities the later can also only be done by police, who usually don't care about that.
Graphic designers and sign makers must be getting rich. Kickbacks from companies to local politicians and police
Knowing how our goverment operates, the companies making signs are owned by those who decide where to put them. And each is worth about 1000 EUR. (Stealing them gives you nothing though.)
A jĂĄ myslel ĆŸe mĂĄte jenom ÄeskĂœ kanĂĄl ale oba jsou top a oba odebĂrĂĄm rozhodnÄ pokraÄujte
1:43 I tried to press the ''sign'' and all it did was pausing the video? Why did u want us to pause it?
In London, there was a yellow line on the road, it means that it is forbidden to park cars. All drivers was following the rule, it was clear and less confused for drivers, also it was less signs. đYou can inform your mayority about the yellow line, and they can use it for the city center. If the park for just residence, they can choose red or orange line to inform other drivers about forbidding to park cars. âșïž
Mistake: redundant doesn't mean useless. Better be clear and put another sign that doubt.
Second mistake: sometimes, you think it's redundant, but it's not: yes, it's prohibited parking on a narrow road, but not stopping. And the sign with the cross means "no stop", so it's not useless at all.
Option: Vienna treaty allows to choose road lines instead of signs. In France, you're rarely seeing "no stop" sign but just a yellow line. Or white line with categories of vehicles written on the floor instead of the sign "P réservé". It could be a good opportunity to remove a lot of signs in Prague.
Wow. I was out taking photos in the city and was wondering why so many signs in my photos. Now I know. And the funny thing in Prague I know blue lines on the road you canât park but white ones you can? (I think)! And if itâs the same rules around the city, then some of those signs are really pointless!
Man I love you guys and you guys are the best btw big fan
Thank you so much! Very much appreciated, happy to have you here with us đ
@@HONESTGUIDE thanks man for replying!!!đđđ
awesome znaÄka guysđ
SkvÄlĂœ video :)
Well there's the concept of shared space. E.g. in Bohmte there are no traffic signs at all. Praha could try that in their city centre maybe. (all the other rules like these 3m rules, etc. still excist there of cause just the signs are gone)
Honest guide :)))))) â€â€â€
Prague looks busy, is it in lockdown? Hope to visit in June!
it is :( we just entered a hard lockdown
Stairs and that personal electric device got me. đ GTA V style signs.
I think there is some compromise possible. Signs are preferred over road marking because they are more visible in snow. For foreign car drivers it needs to make basic sense instead of some rule saying you need to leave space. And the zone signs should be used to prevent whole area's for parking instead of doing every side of every street.
Lastly you should try to make it uninviting for cars to drive on the tram tracks, temporary fences, kerbstones, gravel or grass between the tracks to prevent cars from blocking the tram tracks will prevent car parking that would otherwise block the road.
does anybody know anything about "duku"? the graffiti piece (red and black, worm-headed figure) which can be seen right at the beginning of the video was signed by that name... I really like the details and the style of the mural. can't find anything online though. would be nice to see more of duku's work.
Was planning to visit with my school....But Covid stopped our plans.Looking forward to visiting in 2022 when we are allowed to travel outside Greece
I'd be curious to hear what European civil engineers think of this. Because I've heard of the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals, so these signs seems to be part of some standard.
When you saturate an area with signage, the entire collection goes largely ignored.
Plus the poorer a coutry is, the more signs it has. Romania has a lot more than Switzerland, but the indicators are missing before the junctions or are wrongly placed, so even I living in the Romania get lost 3 times easier on the romanian roads than on the swiss ones.
After watching the scamming videos I just wanted to check if he's alright. He is! Good, good!
Keep doing great work for the community. I hope I'll visit soon!
great video!. talk about clocks.
Why do those useless signs need to be there? I get Prague is trying to discourage bad or unwanted behavior.
The song Signs, Signs everywhere signs, comes to mind đ
What mike do you use for recording the videos?
i work for a township in Belgium and we do all it takes to remove all the useless and pointless signs. maybe we can send some to Prague ?
Next time I go downtown I'm gonna pay attention to how many signs I can spot in one place and maybe try to find the spot with the most signs.
I mean, what's wrong about that beer bike sign? It seems like a clever legal trick, so long as police actually checks for them, there will be a legal basis for fines and other penalties.
It seems pretty inefficient. I assume these are businesses and they need permits from local authorities to operate, why not just intervene at that level ?
@@tyrgoossens. If they donât sell anything while in the city these things can be tough to regulate.
The Zone is just insanely large, it spans across parts of Prague where no-one has ever seen one, the same for segways. But ok, you might say it just has to be there BUT. There are over 10 different zones acting at the same time in the city centre (segways, beer bikes, no camping, no bus parking, no entrance to lories, no entrance to horse-drawn carriages, 30 km/h speed limit).
So there could just be just for example two zones, each of them prohibiting 5 things at the same time. But then it would be hard to steal taxpayers money on paying for these signs.
@@tyrgoossens no 'permission' required. The problem with these 'beer bikes' is that they are just regular bikes from the perspective of the traffic law. And they also do not need permission for selling stuff as their users pay in advance and kind of 'buy the beer before'. . So it was kind of legal loophole. Therefore the city authorities had no tools to regulate them other than limiting size of the 'bikes' that can enter the city.
One often things these things are really simple to regulate, but its tricky
â@@letecmig So strange. I know Amsterdam tried to ban them at one point but they also ran into legal issues I think.
5:12, Q: i was watching the video about this same problem in "prague vs. taxi drivers" series, are the taxi drivers still at the end of that street? thank you for answering if you do. hvala.
I saw a car in this video that had parked in a zone where it is illegal to park and therefore had turner on the flashing warning-lights, that is something that should give higher fines, for it is a sign that the driver know that he had parked where he is a danger for other folk and just ignored that; so the warning-light should be seen as "I'm a jerk" sign or "Give me a ticket" indicator.
Hi, can you name some locations of these 1,2m-bike signs? Would like to visit them by myself :)
Man, Im just waiting for the moment I run into you two, since I feel like we exist in the same 1 km radius...
I was on the tram today and saw Janek standing at Wenceslas square. Wish I could have said hi.
You should become Mayor of Prague and fix these problems. It would be so much better!
Some of them, I can understand, such as the Segway ones (though they could put the bike width restrictions on the same signs, I guess they were trying to get rid of them in the same area). But this one: 3:16 I really don't understand. One no stopping sing on the left, one on the right and between them a yellow line meaning exactly the same thing. Why is it all not marked with just the yellow line?
The solution is designing the street such that the rules are clear. As a fun experiment try to compare Amsterdam with Prague in this video.
Redesigning streets that are hundreds years old is nearly impossible and it would be harmful to the cultural heritage. It's a very complicated issue.
@@i.k.2292 Yeah, that's the difference; Amsterdam streets are not hundred years old đ€Š
Please do more traffic and road-type videos.
Wow, this is taking it to a whole new insane level. There are so many signs that it causes traffic to be hindered and tourism will also be in trouble. I mean, do you really wish to travel somewhere to see traffic signs?
I have been to Prague 11 times over 18 years and love it. One of the times I was there my son and I went round all of the football stadia. Outside Sparta they had lots of signs including a NO GRENADE sign, wtf???
... the stun grenades.... ones the football hooligans sometimes use
If you think about it, the most bizarre thing is actually this video.
To cities credit couple months ago when i was in Prague gov officials actually were going around main old town streets and pulling cars away no warnings nothing just crane in on top of their truck and bring it out.
I was disappointed not to recognize more of your locations: just MosteckĂĄ (of course) and UhelnĂœ trh.
Does "dopravnĂ" specifically mean "traffic"? I'm sure I've seen the word in connection with the public transit agency?
One doesnât experience self-transcendence, the illusion of self only dissipatesđ»
2:00 it's not really useless. It's just another reminder. People, even good drivers, can be scattered from time to time and another sign might be the thing that would help them.
Also I believe there can be snow in Prague in winter.
"Repetitive" isn't the same as "useless"
Techincally I could park my smart car on small street... leaves 3 meters XD thats a joke btw.
Also I do think some signs are not dumb cause it gives legal reason and it is easier to explain to simple people why.
Toronto parking signs are just confusing.
Many of them have a long list of rules such as:
-No parking on left side of pole
-No parking of right side of pole between these hours
-Parking on right side of pole during these hours, but only from the 1st to the 15th of every month, except from November to March
-Parking on left side of pole by permit only
-Parking for 1 hour only, unless after 4PM
A Forrest of traffic signs? New phrase? Graffiti? Go to Italy. I went to Rome in 2017. We were staying in hotel about 15 minutes from the bus station and the amount of graffiti was shocking. I don't know whether it's been cleaned up since I don't know. I was just shocked.
same issue here in Poland!
What is that weird multi-person bike thing? Iâve seen a similar one on London Bridge here in the UK.
Signs Signs
Everywhere there's signs
F-ing up the scenery
Breaking my mind
i thought you would say you were signing off. Or is that something not said in Prague?
Ho my god thanks it's super interesting, I think exactly the same thing! if the infrastructure is well done the "TRAFFIC SIGNS" are indeed useless! can I use parts of your video ? Thank you for this topic!
Can I use parts of your comment ?
The âdonât stop or parkâ sign isnât stupid. All signs are obvious if you think about it. Theyâre there to remind us and warn.
The thing is that when you are overwhelming streets with signs, the human brain will stop picking them up. With that the essence of the sign will fade. Think about the big amount of "STOP" signs in the US, no one stops for them because there is no essence to stop. Its a psychological game to find a balance between overwhelming and alerting/warning. A yellow line should in this case be sufficient to remind someone that they cant park somewhere.
Jolly what should be sufficient too is less than 3m of free space, but someone couldâve said: I didnât see the line therefore itâs not my fault.
@@elvir182 That is true, however to the 3m rule leaves space for own interpretation. Therefore it is less easy to enforce the law. And for missing the yellow line, the same can be said for missing the dont stop or park sign. Therefore with reducing the total amount of signs and leaving them in the places where they are really needed the essence of the sign would be brought back, and more people will see the sign.
I have posted many photos of people parking in a "no parking" zone in front of my office, right in the bus lane. There is a Starbucks there, so if you stop, put on your hazard lights, it's ok to park there, apparently.
Not 100% sure how this pans out legally, but I imagine the hazard lights indicate they're just stopping, not parking (which may or may not also be allowed depending on the sign used to indicate that)
Does the City enforce those signs? Here in Italy, the fines are gold mines for cities' administrations
See now I think there are too many traffic signs everywhere. But then I remembered that had those signs not been there, people would park, drive everywhere. Drivers don't feel particularly threatened by the fines for breaking the ruls.
Well, I don't know about Chech traffic signs, but in The Netherlands the "No Parking"-sign in front of the crosswalk (2:00) means "No Stopping" and I suppose it's the same in Prague. Which makes the combination of the two (sign Ă nd crosswalk) even more absurd. Cars are now prohibited to stop for crossing pedestrians!
Somebody really thought this out........ not long enough thoughđđđ
The "Subscribe" sign was a brilliant tie-in.
Oh, and I've seen "no farting" sign at the entry to the tourist information somewhere in Czechia :-)
This is inhuman...