Approaching a narrow archway on an old high street, you see a plain white circular sign with a red border showing two black arrows pointing towards each other, with a measurement in metres printed beneath them. Your car, including its wing mirrors and a roof box it is carrying, is wider than the figure shown. What does this sign require you to do?
- Slow to walking pace and edge through the archway carefully, since the figure shown is only a recommendation rather than a limit
- Ignore the sign, because width restriction signs legally apply only to goods vehicles and coaches, never to private cars
- Continue through at normal speed, since the arrows only warn that the road narrows ahead rather than prohibiting any vehicle
- Find an alternative route, because a red circular sign with two arrows pointing together is a width restriction: it prohibits any vehicle wider than the stated figure, measured across the whole vehicle including mirrors and any load, from continuing
Why D? And why not the others?
Correct answer: D. Find an alternative route, because a red circular sign with two arrows pointing together is a width restriction: it prohibits any vehicle wider than the stated figure, measured across the whole vehicle including mirrors and any load, from continuing
A white circle with a red border is a prohibition, and the specific symbol of two arrows pointing towards each other with a metres figure beneath is the 'no vehicles over width shown' sign, the direct width-based counterpart to the more familiar height-restriction circle used at low bridges. Because the prohibition is measured across the full vehicle envelope, including projections such as wing mirrors and any load like a roof box, a driver whose vehicle exceeds that figure once mirrors and load are accounted for must not continue and needs to find another route. The option suggesting the figure is only a recommendation to be edged past at walking pace misreads a red-circle prohibition as if it were advisory guidance, which is not how this sign category works. The option claiming the restriction applies only to goods vehicles and coaches invents an exemption that no plate on this sign describes; without a vehicle-symbol plate narrowing it, a prohibitory circle binds all traffic, private cars included. The option treating the arrows as a mere warning that the road narrows confuses this prohibitory circular sign with an entirely different triangular warning sign for road narrowing, which only alerts drivers to reduced width rather than banning any vehicle from proceeding.
Source: GOV.UK, The Highway Code — Traffic signs (regulatory/prohibitory signs, width restriction); DfT Know Your Traffic Signs