Reassurance marker

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Reassurance markers for Highway 401 (Highway of Heroes) in Ontario, Canada.

A reassurance marker or road identification sign is an indicatory road sign that repeats the name or number of the current route. Typically posted at intervals alongside a numbered highway, the signs are intended to reassure drivers that they are traveling on the correct road (hence the name), or inform them that they are, in fact, on the wrong road.

1 North America
2 Australia and New Zealand
3 Europe
4 See also
5 References

[edit] North America

Ressurance marker for a Business Loop of Interstate 90 in Austin, Minnesota.

In the United States and Canada, reassurance markers (also called reassurance shields or confirming shields) usually take the form of a shield on an elevated pole, with the road number posted on it and a plate above or below it indicating the "official" direction of that side of the route. (The official long-range direction may differ from the short-range direction: for example, a large stretch of I-90 near Buffalo, New York runs north and south, whereas the route is officially an east-west route.) The direction portion of the sign confirms the driver is not going the wrong way along the right road. On larger roads, reassurance markers are sometimes posted on a sign that is elevated on a gantry.

In the United States, reassurance shields are defined in Section 2D-31 of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. The MUTCD recommends placing of reassurance assemblies in the following places:

25 to 200 feet (8-61 m) after intersections of numbered highways
Between intersections in urban areas as needed
After leaving the limits of any incorporated city or town
Periodically in other places for reassurance purposes

The MUTCD standard requires a cardinal directional sign to be posted with the route shield to further reassure travelers that they are traveling the correct direction on their route. However, this standard is not always followed, especially in urban areas.

[edit] Australia and New Zealand

Australia and New Zealand have setups similar to the United States, but usually without the direction sign. In Victoria, shields are only used for metropolitan routes and national routes; regional routes use rectangular green signs with yellow lettering.

In addition, trapezoidal signs are placed every 5 km on major regional highways and freeways indicating the distance to the post office of the next city or major town on the route. These signs usually only have the first letter of the destination; two letters are used if there is ambiguity between nearby towns or when the place name consists of two words.

[edit] Europe

Hectometer post on the N228 road in Utrecht province

A simple identification sign attached to a lamp post on Leeson Street, Dublin, near the start of Ireland's N11

The Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals specifies that "road identification signs" consist of the route number framed in a rectangle, or shield, or the relevant state's route classification symbol if one exists.^[1] The extent to which such signs are used varies between countries. In the Republic of Ireland, they are found mainly on new sections of road built since the beginning of the "Celtic Tiger" era of the mid-1990s. In the Netherlands, frequently-positioned hectometer posts include the route number, the distance in hectometers, and the current speed limit. In some European countries, distance posts similar to milestones are placed at regular intervals along roadsides; as well as giving the distance to or from one end of the route, these posts include the route number. These are in the form of low pillars which difficult to read at high speed, but are often useful on minor roads.