| Nederlands | Children's crossing in New Zealand |
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New Zealand takes the shape of the
Australian road-sign. The drawing, however, differs and is an exact
copy of the British design. The same picture is used for the bus stop warning. It's remarkable how an Italian school bus stop comes as a standard drawing with a deviating shape, where New Zealand prefers a standard shape with a more telling picture. |
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| Palliser Bay (N-Isl.), 22.VII.2001;
pict. Breine & Van Den Bergh |
Australia | Great-Britain | Raurimu NP (N-Isl.), 21.VII.2001;
pict. Breine & Van Den Bergh |
| The Kangaroo warning seems to be import from Australia. In fact, apart from a bat or two no mammals in New Zealand are native species. Wallabies f.e. were brought in during the 1870s at about the same time when the first rabbit set foot in Australia. Rabbits adapted quite well due to their hind-legs, probably. But I digress. Anyway, New Zealand is now being gobbled up by Possums and other imported pest species. |  |
And yet another warning for children on the road. The artist took his inspiration from the old fashioned signs from Europe (f.e. Spain and the most common sign in Belgium). And he was so conscientious to mirror the design in this way adapting it to a left-hand driving situation. | ||
| Ngawi, Cape Palliser (N.Isl.) 22.VII.2001 |
| Ian Fraser wrote me about the Palliser Bay sign:
The supplementary Caution Children is a non standard addition. ... where lay persons felt that a standard sign in use over the whole country did not signify a message well enough, and there was a feeling that it had to be added to in some way. (A standard supplementary is School) |
and he continues:
... The previous NZ standard sign showed a boy leading a girl. (Work for our spotters!) ... I had a batch of the new format signs made up with half boy/girl, and half girl/boy. I don't think that it made any difference since it would seem that no matter how much we tried, and no matter how much care we put into clearly signing hazards, drivers still managed to crash their cars. |
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| More signs from New Zealand: Men at work - Falling rocks |