New Zealand has a literacy rate of 99% and, as a consequence, we are known as great readers, but we average only about five books each a year while Australians, often portrayed as slackers when it comes to matters cultural, each get through 10 books every year. So, what are we doing with our literacy that we are so far down in the book reading stakes?
The bureaucrats are directing our reading to road signs. It’s obvious, really, as our roadsides are awash with reading material.
There were no road signs in Patearoa 100 years ago, reflecting either a lack of traffic or the fact that about half the population was illiterate in those days. Visual pollution began in the 1920s when the first power poles appeared around the township and electricity proved to be quite popular — the locals have been using it ever since.
But today we are smothered in sign pollution. Some signs are informative, perhaps explaining the significance of an historical spot or, in the case of the old school site, proclaiming the long-closed Patearoa School was the proud winner of the national Goodman Fielder School of the Year Award in 1999.
Street name signs came not so long ago and they’re a useful way of noting the contribution of pioneering families, but locals still use the informal names of years ago. Barking Tce (officially Chirnside Tce), once home to about 30 dogs, is my favourite.
Give-way signs arrived, too, and that meant a change in attitude. Until then the locals gave way to anyone they knew or owed money to but otherwise just charged on.
In fact, you could sit outside the pub and takes bets on who would give way to whom at that intersection where the post office used to be. Exciting near misses livened up the day.
Another local motoring tradition is parking in the middle of the road to have a yarn through the window to the bloke coming the other way who has parked alongside you. A minor inconvenience to other motorists, perhaps, but hardly dangerous. All the same, signs like "Please Pull off the Road When Yarning" are bound to come.
Now it’s safety all the way. Approaching Patearoa a procession of speed limit signs takes you from 100kmh to 70kmh and 50kmh as you reach the CBD.
King of the speed signs is a screen which tells you your speed as you get near and flashes "Slow Down" if you’re overdoing it. This screen, like a television set on a pole, is rating higher than the rubbish actually shown on television.
Some people drive back and forth a dozen times just to see the screen’s reaction to their driving skills. Rumour has it the screen will soon be showing ads for tractors, fertiliser and cruises, which the big city ad people regard as big sellers with the rural demographic.
Not so with the latest effort which obliterates the skyline to tell you the top bridge has weight restrictions and it’s just 600m ahead. At the bridge itself another sign gives the bridge’s full biography and another one sorts out who gives way to whom. Bit of an art gallery, really.
In fact, there’s no need for heavy vehicles to be on that road at all. It leads to nowhere in particular, meandering up to the old mining area at Hard Hill. Heavy traffic is well catered for with the bottom bridge which actually leads to important places like Styx and Serpentine and if, perhaps, you are a tourist who travels by Sherman tank, rest assured the Sowburn can be easily crossed using the ford by the bottom bridge.
No doubt the new heavy vehicle sign was signed off by some local body or government pen pusher, perhaps a Signage Officer (officialdom always talks of "signage", not "signs").
So, please, Signage Officer, would you remove it, and stamp "Not Required" on the file relating to the unfortunate intrusion to our scenery or move it to the main road to keep heavy traffic from going that way at all.
Believe me, the undersigned believes we are over-signed.
I’ll sign off now.
— Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer.
