🚀 go-pugleaf

"Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <mail@peterduncanson.net>:
>On Fri, 9 Dec 2011 11:47:44 +0000, Mike Barnes
><mikebarnes@bluebottle.com> wrote:
>
>>"Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <mail@peterduncanson.net>:
>>>On Fri, 9 Dec 2011 07:41:56 +0000, Mike Barnes
>>><mikebarnes@bluebottle.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Duggy <Paul.Duggan@jcu.edu.au>:
>>>>>On Dec 8, 11:45�pm, "Django Cat" <notar...@address.com> wrote:
>>>>>> Duggy wrote:
>>>>>> > > > I've seen it usually when large vehicles are regularly accessing
>>>>>> > > > the road from place they usually don't and/or are hard to see.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> > > The (many) examples I saw seem to indicate a lane closure associated
>>>>>> > > with road works. Often - not always - there'd be lollipop man.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> > Yes, but instead of having a "Changed Traffic Conditions Ahead" and a
>>>>>> > "Changed Road Layout Ahead" sign, they have one that covers both.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I quite often see 'changed priorities ahead', which is a tad
>>>>>> existential.
>>>>>
>>>>>OK I don't know what that means.
>>>>
>>>>It means that you have to give way to a stream of traffic that you
>>>>didn't previously have to give way to, or vice-versa. "Priority" is a
>>>>clearly-understood concept for traffic.
>>>>
>>>>The one I struggle with most in the UK is TEMPORARY ROAD SURFACE. I
>>>>remember as a child asking my father what it meant, and it makes no more
>>>>sense to me now than it did then.
>>>
>>>There may be various ways in which a road surface may be temporary. The
>>>one I've met most often is where a road is in the process of being
>>>relaid and part of it has been reopened to traffic before the final top
>>>surface of tarmac has been laid. The surface on which you are driving is
>>>not the final surface and is in that sense "temporary". It is not in
>>>that example temporary in the sense that it will be removed and replaced
>>>with a better one.
>>
>>Yes, but its temporary nature is of no immediate interest to me as a
>>motorist. I'm more interested in knowing whether it's rough, slippery,
>>pot-holed, undrained, lacking markings, etc.
>
>Mere details!
>
>I think the sign is warning that it could be any of those - "Don't
>expect a normal road surface".

"Poor road surface", "Substandard road surface", "Rough road", anything
like that would be fine. But the allegedly temporary nature of the
surface is irrelevant and uninformative. It does no harm to say what you
mean rather than leaving the reader to solve a riddle.

-- 
Mike Barnes
Cheshire, England