How Traffic Signs Can Help You Prevent Traffic Jams
If there’s one thing that everyone hates, it’s a traffic jam. When you’re on your way into work, traffic jams make you late; when you’re on your way back, they stop you from getting home and relaxing. Traffic jams can turn a quick trip to the grocery store into an hours long journey—all while the frozens you just bought melt in the backseat.
But the worst part about traffic jams is how powerless you feel when you’re in one. In the middle of a gridlock, you can’t just pull around and go somewhere else—you’re stuck there until the traffic clears up. And what’s worse, it can feel like you’re powerless to do anything about it.
Well, we here at National Sign and Signal have a little good news: you might not be as powerless to avoid traffic as you think. Today, we’re discussing how you can use traffic signs and some ingenuity to avoid traffic jams.
How to Avoid Traffic Jams Ahead of Time
When it comes to traffic jams, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In other words, taking just a minute or two to plug your destination into Google Maps can almost immediately show you what areas to avoid. Most of the time, services like Google Maps or Apple Maps will actually be able to show you exactly where traffic is congested in real time.
When you use your phone’s GPS, the service you’re using tracks where you are as you travel (no surprises there). So, when companies like Google and Apple see a large number of users stopped or slowed in a usually high-speed area, it tells them that there’s a traffic jam. Then, they’ll automatically adjust your recommended route.
Tips for Avoiding Traffic Jams on Road Trips
As great as modern technology is, it’s still far from perfect; it seems like everyone has a story of their phone’s GPS leading them the wrong way or down a road that doesn’t exist. The same is true for traffic jams—sometimes, these GPSs can group people into areas that aren’t meant for high amounts of traffic, causing jams. This is why having strong traffic signs and knowing how to interpret them is essential.
Traffic signs (and especially LED traffic signs) will often have information you can’t get anywhere else, not even online. We recommend keeping an eye out for signs that forecast slow traffic or hazardous driving conditions, such as:
- Slow Traffic Ahead
- Road Work Ahead or Work Zone
- Lane Closure Ahead
- Road Closure Ahead
In addition to these traffic signs, we also recommend taking note of LED traffic signs that have information about future roadwork. Even if you see I once or twice, you may not remember later, so if there’s a planned road closure or road work in an area you frequent, we recommend setting a reminder for that day.
Prevent Traffic Jams with Traffic Signs
In any case, the #1 reason for traffic jams is preventable mistakes such as collisions, accelerating and slowing traffic, and failures to merge. With the help of clear road signs, you can vastly mitigate the many mistakes that create traffic jams. To get high quality traffic signs for your roadways, click here to contact us today!
