Detour Signs

Are you being forced to close a road due to repairs or construction? Did a natural disaster swoop in and make an area of the highway unusable? Are you looking to make changes to the existing roadway to improve traffic flow? There are many reasons why you may need to close off a section of the roadways, but they all have one thing in common: You’ll need to provide an alternate route for drivers accustomed to using the road you’re closing. If you leave this route to each driver’s imagination, you’re simply begging for trouble. The better way is to outline a proper route that gets drivers back to their original one in the least amount of time possible. You want to both minimize inconvenience and maximize the smooth flow of traffic. Well-placed Detour Signs can help you accomplish both.

Guide Drivers to Their Destinations

As you probably know through your own experience, it’s easy to make your way through and around a city without knowing the names of every road. When you drive the same route every day, it gets to the point where you could do it in your sleep. Strangely enough, you might actually struggle if asked to tell someone else how to get to your place of work. That’s because you aren’t finding your way through a series of conscious decisions (turn right on Elm, turn left at the gas station, etc.) but through muscle memory. Millions of other drivers are in the same boat.

Unfortunately, this means that closing a section of the road can create a stressful situation in these commuters’ lives. They aren’t really familiar with the side streets. They may not know that Elm connects with Riverside Drive. Sure, most people have handy GPS maps with them these days, but you should not depend on them using those devices to get where they’re going. When you closed the road, you made it your responsibility to guide these people to their destinations. That means plotting out a favorable route and then marking that route with abundant Detour Signs that keep drivers informed and confident that they’re on the right path.

Post in Advance

While it falls on you to use Detour Signs to help drivers avoid the closed roadways and reach their destinations, these same drivers may elect to trust their own instincts and knowledge of the area instead of following your prescribed route. This is their right, and you should make it easy on them by posting your Detour Signs well before the actual closure. When drivers are notified that there is a detour ahead, they can decide whether to take the detour or find an alternative route of their own design. Not only does this give area drivers a bit of freedom, it helps ease the inevitable congestion you will face on the “official” detour route.