Highway Signs - Green or Blue? 

"Voice of C. Montgomery Burns" (voiceofcmb) 03/30/2016 at 10:41 • Filed to: None

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I’ve found that most highway signs in America are on green backgrounds. A lot of Europe uses blue backgrounds.

Which do you prefer?

Ash78, voting early and often > Voice of C. Montgomery Burns 03/30/2016 at 10:47

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Going back to childhood road trips — and continuing to this day — my favorite highway signs are the brown ones :D

Urambo Tauro > Voice of C. Montgomery Burns 03/30/2016 at 10:50

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Both.

In the US, blue and green are not used interchangeably, but are used to convey different information. Green for guidance, blue for services. Is there a similar consistency in Europe?

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Voice of C. Montgomery Burns 03/30/2016 at 10:51

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Well, green has the highest visibility to actual light intensity, if I’m remembering this correctly. So, the green sign is most visible at night. However, if there’s a catch, I’m suspecting that it’s that white on blue is more legible at distance than white on green. So in summary, you probably see the US sign first, but can read the EU sign slightly sooner. Each has advantages, yada yada.

Voice of C. Montgomery Burns > Ash78, voting early and often 03/30/2016 at 10:52

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Forgot about those.

chaozbandit > Voice of C. Montgomery Burns 03/30/2016 at 10:52

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Both.

At least in parts of Canada, green are used for main stretches of highway and collector lanes whereas blue are for express lanes.

Ash78, voting early and often > Voice of C. Montgomery Burns 03/30/2016 at 10:53

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Anything and everything..."BIRTHPLACE OF WAYLON JENNINGS" Honey, stop the damned car RIGHT NOW!

Cé hé sin > Urambo Tauro 03/30/2016 at 11:05

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Nope. As a kind of general rule motorways have blue signs, main roads green ones and local roads white ones but there’s no consistency.

Here’s a UK motorway sign:

And a UK main road sign leading to a motorway, shown in blue

While this is an Italian sign showing exactly the opposite to the UK one - blue main road with motorway shown in green

Verdog ~ manual Bro, Bro - HellHawk Equipped > Urambo Tauro 03/30/2016 at 13:43

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And brown is parks and rec