Road Signs

Well, I haven't done very well with my intention to spend the winter learning to drive in Spain. In fact, I barely cracked the book that I finally bought from an autoescuela until this past week. When I did open the book, I kept getting bogged down in Chapter 1, which has colored pictures of almost 40 different vehicles, from a bicicleta to a tren turístico. The idea here, I gather, is to be able to recognize the ones that require a driver's license to drive (not needed for the bicicleta, and I'm not about to try for the special license for the tren turístico or tractor de obras, either).

So this week I finally just skipped over to Chapter 2 (of 18): Road Signs. This is the first mention of anything that really has anything to do with how to drive, or how not to, as the case may be. I have noticed, of course, that some road signs follow international norms of which I am already aware, but others are not very familiar to me. And I'm looking forward to reading an explanation of what one is supposed to do when navigating through the hundreds of roundabouts (rotondas) that Spanish roads use to manage many intersections. They look like the rotaries that are common in Massachusetts, but the Spanish drivers don't seem to get in and out of them in quite the same way that Massachusetts drivers do.

I haven't come across the rule of the rotonda yet. But the first thing I found in the Road Signs chapter was the five different types of road signs. They are:

1. Signals and orders from Traffic Agents (these are humans)
2. "Circumstantial" signs that modify normal traffic signs (as for road work or emergencies)
3. Traffic lights (of the red, yellow, and green variety)
4. So-called "vertical" signs, the metal ones that are anchored vertically to the ground on the right or left side of the road
5. Signals painted on the pavement

Now I've spoiled the surprise by giving them to you already in priority order, but the first, mind you, the first sentence in the chapter says, "When the signals are contradictory, you must obey the sign that has the highest authority."

I'm sure I would have guessed that special "circumstantial" signs took precedence over normal road signs, and that if a human traffic agent told me to do something, I'd better follow that order rather than whatever any inanimate sign said. But all the examples show situations in which the lower three priorities of signs are contradictory! Now why would someone deliberately erect a traffic light, or a vertical metal sign, or paint signals on pavement and make them contradictory with what was already there?

And why, I wondered as I got deeper and deeper into contradictory road signs and what to do when I encounter them, did the book go into such detail about the proper course of action when it had not yet even introduced me to the meaning of all the individual signs themselves?

I'm only on page 38.