Missed the edit window:
I only realized what the “obvious symbol” was on the Canadian (maybe just Ontario) no passing sign after realizing it always happened when the lines changed.
But it probably wouldn’t have taken you a while had it applied to you. It’s not like people just hop across the border carrying a thousand gallons of sulfuric acid. Hopefully.
I thought that Ghostbusters ensured that everyone knew this symbol.
I would like to argue that all of these signs with icons ought to have the message in words to, written in the prevailing language(s) of the place. I would like to argue that the icon alone should have no legal force, whereas the words would.
I argue this because, as this thread implies, it’s not clear that everybody will understand what the icon is trying to say.
Case in point: I went hiking up a trail in the hills once. At the entrance to the trail was a sign with several slashed-circle icons. This is where I got the examples quoted above. One of the icons showed a silhouette of a person hiking with a walking stick and a back-pack. I took this to mean: “No back-packing” (i.e., no place ahead to camp, or campground closed ahead, or similar).
So, having no intention of doing any camping, I hiked on up the trail.
A little ways up the trail I met a ranger on horseback who told me to turn around and go back. Turns out, the entire trail was closed (due to high fire danger that day), and the sign actually meant No Hiking, or Trail Closed. But there was no sign there that actually, you know, said the trail was closed, and that’s not at all what I read into the sign with the icon.
I’ve known a few such cases up here. Some got their licenses back when there were no written exams, others just winged it.
For the U.S., I just did a quick Google, and came up with:
There are 203 million people with driver licenses in the U.S. (in 2006)
30 million adults (who understand English) in the U.S. are below basic reading level (in 2003)
I can’t find the obvious statistic of total number of adults who understand English, but I expect it to be pretty close to, or slightly under, 233 million. In 2000, the total number of people aged 15 and up was about 245 million.
Of course, reading road signs is easier than reading a novel, etc.
No kings named Roy?
You’re totally correct. Thanks. For some reason, I was thinking of a standalone symbol, with the bar going horizontally. In your examples (and others, like the Ghostbusters mentioned elsewhere) it is diagonal.
That sign just means that any prior restrictions are now cancelled (speed limit, no passing). So it says “no” to that restriction. It exists in special versions, too, for instance with a speed limit inside. That means only the speed limit is cancelled, but no passing is still under effect. The sign is also not red, which usually indicates some sort of “no” sign.
No smoking, no parking (blue background, white arrows indicating the side(s) on which parking is forbidden), no dogs, no animals, no photographs, no flash… and that’s off the top of my head.
There are always going to be visitors to Canada who don’t speak English but have valid licenses in their home countries.
