Helppppp! New Motorway Signs ???

[droflas]

Hi.

I'm not sure if this is the place to ask this question ??? but it is driving me potty.

I drive for a living and I have noticed some signs about every half mile.
They look something like below driving South.

All the text is centralised, but I can't get it to centralise on here but it will give you a rough idea.

M6
B
267.5

Then the next will be
M6
B
268.0

and so on.

On the otherside of the motorway is the same but with an 'A' driving North

WHAT ARE THEY FOR ??? and what are they counting down too or up too and why???

Please can somebody explain and put me out of my misery.

Thanks All.

Droflas.

[JockTamsonsBairn]

They're so that you can report you position, in case of breakdown/emergency. Lots of people call in on their mobile rather than the emergency phones, and not every has GPS for pinpoint accuracy!

The signs show:- motorway name (obvious to you or I, but useful for novices/foreigners), a distance from somewhere (J0 or J1?). And direction. Why A & B rather than N(orth) & S(outh), I have no idea.

I remember seeing a TV series about the M6 police and one of them radioed in saying "We're at nnn on the Bravo side", but I can't see why Bravo would be easier to understand on the radio than Sierra. Having said that, there are very few parts of the M6 that actually run North-South, so somebody must have made an arbitrary decision. I think all motorways have these signs, so I suppose that Alpha is easier than e.g. North North West :-).

[MarkHewitt]

Quite simple, A and B are used to avoid confusion between "Northbound" and "Southbound" when the motorway doesn't run North / South. Keep in mind it's not just the M6 this system applies to.

This type of thing has been in place for decades in the form of motorway marker posts.

I think I remember reading the numbers are km rather than miles?

[mikealder]

The distance between each marker is 0,5 K - the number appears to be distance from London (not too sure why) but the values certainly work out that way - first noticed them around Manchester on the M6 but over the last year more have arrived - I even purchased a highway code last year to find out what they were - but they are not even mentioned!!

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