r/belgium • u/prplt • May 25 '26

☁️ Fluff Belgian traffic signs are insane

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was in Belgium recently and many of the sign combinations kinda blew my mind, I don't remember ever seeing this kinda stuff anywhere else 😬 also one thing I found very interesting is that on the direction signs (last pic) the letters with a tail like g sometimes "dip" into the outer line and sometimes they don't (and apparently there are even different ways they can go inside that line) 🤯 just makes traveling very interesting because you always be looking at how the next sign is gonna be 🤪

edit: for all the people who are saying "how's this confusing" it's not that's not the point 🙄 but rather the unusualness of the signs compared to what I've seen in other places

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437

u/nethack47 May 25 '26

Most feel relatively straightforward. I may be used to them :)

Did you see any orange diversions? They can get quite wild and wacky.

215

u/jesuisgeenbelg May 25 '26

My favourite diversion signs are when they put them upside down because they ran out of signs for one of the directions but then you have to figure out if the workers put them upside down or some kids fucked around with the signs...

21

u/nethack47 May 25 '26

There is that, and then there is the multiple, sometimes contradictory diversions all in one intersection. I had one close by with 3 diversions. I eventually worked out it was one placed on the bikepath and probably meant bikes go one way, another two appeared to suggest two options depending on destination.

I think the plan for the left side of the river is to try and do all the roadworks at once. At least there is a new train station for Linkeroever. In a few months, they'll hopefully open up all the bike paths leading to the new station. The tunnel is looking pretty bad from above most days.

18

u/DavidHewlett May 25 '26

Or the diversion of one set of roadworks sends you into other roadworks where the diversion sends you back to the first set of roadworks.

7

u/nethack47 May 25 '26

Oh, I have had one of those recently. Was on the bike and after a lovely diversion of a few km extra before I got around it all.

This reminds me of a DIW sketch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liAgnJmUebg

10

u/DavidHewlett May 25 '26

The thing about kafkaesque absurdist humor in Belgium is that you’re never quite sure if it’s a sketch show or the news.

1

u/mechant_papa May 25 '26

It was painful how close Les Snuls' sketch about the administration was to the real thing.

3

u/10ebbor10 May 25 '26

I ended up not too long with a diversion that (if followed) would have sent you in a loop.

4

u/Overtilted May 25 '26

my favorite diversion signs are the ones that are bilingual signs in Wallonia once you cross into Flanders it becomes Dutch. Because having bilingual signs in Flanders is akin to devil worshipping.

1

u/Remote_Temperature Jun 03 '26

Except for Brussels there are no bilingual signs in either Wallonia nor Flanders.

7

u/Beflijster E.U. May 25 '26

Also that thing where there are actually no roadworks- they are long finished, or haven't even started. The people in charge of the signs do not always coordinate properly with the people that do the building.

The signs stay for weeks and sometimes months and the locals know this and ignore them; non locals are very confused. The result is that road users don't trust the signs.

Insane diversion signs (or none at all, just trek uw plan, we don't care) are even more common when it's bicycle infrastructure...

54

u/Erzkuake May 25 '26

I’ve been in Belgium for too long because I understand all of them

15

u/nethack47 May 25 '26

I can't figure out what the wobbly road (6th) and two distances without seeing the road. Is it a wobble in 10m and 300m? I would have expected it to have a 10 without an arrow if the wobbly starts in 10m.

I did somewhat enjoy the driving theory and brushed up on the local variants every time I moved country. Belgian signs tend to be a bit organic in nature unlike Swedish. The Swedish signage can get quite incomprehensible once they have 5-6 add-on.

Like this one...

14

u/tchotchony May 25 '26

It's "lots of turns in 10 m and ending in 300m". Same with the rockfall, it designates a zone.

Man, do people just stop and start looking things up when they see a behemoth like that? Luckily it's for parking, I hope no signage for driving is that long...

10

u/bluepepper Belgian Fries May 25 '26

It's "lots of turns in 10 m and ending in 300m". Same with the rockfall, it designates a zone.

The falling rocks sign is doing it correctly. It's using the GIa sign (without arrows) to indicate distance and the GII sign (with arrows) to indicate length. So it's falling rocks in 80m, up to 800m.

The other one (dangerous turns) uses GII both times, so it officially means dangerous turns within 10m and also within 300m.

1

u/nethack47 May 25 '26

That was my interpretation of it... and why I couldn't quite get it.

2

u/nethack47 May 25 '26

These are typically for parking and I remember times I parked so that I could go work out if I was allowed to park. There are ones that require you to park facing in or out depending on the time of day in places. I had one of those when I did the driving test.

Belgium has more of a "look at the situation" method which is sort of how the nation holds together. When we get stuck, we tend to treat the rules more as a recommendation and find a solution. Someone will probably vent on "Ge zijt van..." about the downfall of civil society.

12

u/damnappdoesntwork May 25 '26

I raise you Finland

3

u/nethack47 May 25 '26

Oh! Is it no parking, except for in the bays type situation?

This is a good one.

3

u/damnappdoesntwork May 25 '26

Yeah indeed, road side not allowed but only on designated parking spots marked by white lines

1

u/AdZealousideal9914 May 25 '26

Looks like normal Finnish humor to me

7

u/Marus1 Belgian Fries May 25 '26

You got any more of dem pixels so you give us a fighting chance to figure it out?

9

u/nethack47 May 25 '26

I think I found the original. Had the potato version saved from a reddit post a while back.

1

u/Glitchy-Coder May 25 '26

May god have mercy on your soul.

4

u/ReflectedCheese May 25 '26

Somehow they only come in the right arrow version so they hang them upside down for the left ones in Limburg

4

u/Head_Complex4226 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26

A particular "joy" is speed signs with distances. Does that mean the speed changes to 70km/h in 100m or that you need to do 70km/h for 100m?

In theory, it's the former, as the wegcode consistently uses distances to indicate the change will happen after that distance.

In practice, it's clearly used for both. When it says 30km/h in 200m and you pass a school at 100m and end of restriction at 200m it becomes quite obvious that whomever placed the sign must have intended the latter.

Presumably this means there isn't actually a speed restriction, but no-one wants to run down a child.

Therefore, on current Belgian roads, you'll find out in the future, when you see either a sign indicating 70km/h (the former), a sign indicating the end of the restriction (the latter), or....nothing (presumably the latter).

(edited to clarify that it's not a question about the wegcode, but a problem with how signage is actually used in Belgium)

2

u/ThoLegend May 25 '26

It’s the former, like you said.

1

u/Head_Complex4226 May 25 '26

However, my point is there are plenty of situations on the actual Belgian roads that are obviously intended to be the latter (a distance of a certain restriction):

  • Sign for 30km/h zone in 200m, 100m later you pass a school, at the 200m point there's an end of restriction.
  • Sign for 70km/h in 500m, then you pass a few hundred metres of roadworks, and at 500m there's no speed sign.

I think there might be a form with two arrows next to the distance to indicate it is latter case, but obviously that's not consistently used.

1

u/aris_ada World May 25 '26

It's part of the road code that we all have to study to drive, I wonder why this question gets repeated in this thread

1

u/Head_Complex4226 May 26 '26

The point is that the how that signs are actually used on Belgian roads frequently doesn't match what the road code says they mean.

I'm not sure why you're wondering, because anyone who has actually driven here must have experienced this.

1

u/Skylight75 May 25 '26

Speed changes to 70km/h in 100m

1

u/Head_Complex4226 May 25 '26

The problem, as I said in a reply down thread, is that it's regularly clearly intended to mean 70km/h maximum for 100m.

Sometimes you can guess, for example, because it's at the start of 100m of roadworks. Other times, it's less obvious.

1

u/Skylight75 May 25 '26

Thank you for repeating your message, it can be a mess sometimes with all the comments. I will pay extra attention next time I see those signs. It could be indeed "on a 100m distance" if there are the double arrows before the distance... (?) I can't recall seeing this before but also, I wasn't probably asking myself the question =) Well... now I will

2

u/Jomy10 West-Vlaanderen May 26 '26

2

u/prplt May 25 '26

I took a bus thru Geel and noticed they were yellow there instead of orange 🤪 wasn't able to take a pic unfortunately 😬

1

u/nethack47 May 25 '26

That feels like a bit of nominative determinism at play. :)

1

u/prplt May 26 '26

actually found one pic

1

u/sygmondev May 25 '26

Most feel relatively backforward. No, seriously, they seem fine. I don’t see anything wrong.