What do the black diamonds, circles and squares on a yellow background mean in road signs?

Question

as above... I have always wondered

Answer 1

They are used when there is more than one diversionary route in place at one time.

For example, there is major building work going on in Bristol at the moment, you follow the diamonds to go to one area, circles for another area, squares for a third area and triangles for a fourth area.

Answer 2

I believe they are to show you standard diversions, however I could be wrong (eg if that road is closed, you follow one of the symbols as a diversionary route)

Answer 3

i think they're not really black diamonds..the black diamonds you see is actually from the zig zag pattern made by the yellow diagonal lines..which is the yellow box junction (clearway)..it means you can't stop in it in order to let other cars coming out from/turning into a junction to pass through..

as for the circles i believe it's saying beware, something ahead

hope this helps?

Answer 4

Paul and Boggy have it right, they are diversion routes.

I think they originally started out as 'Holiday Routes' with an HR symbol on the direction signs to get people diverting out of the huge jams that built up to and from the West Country on changeover days in the summer, but when you've got more than one HR at a time they needed to be a bit more creative.

Answer 5

They are alternative routes if the motorway is closed.  We found this out one day when the motorway had to be closed because of a bad accident, as we were filtered off to the exit, which was obviously congested, a policeman came up and told us to follow them to get to the next motorway junction that was not closed.  Brilliant.