please empty your brain below
Warning signs have to be graphic, to allow for people that cannot read or understand the language its written in.

Nick | 19.09.15 - 7:44 a.m. | #

Will I be able to see the sign if lots of passengers are standing on the platform?, should it also be in (pick foreign language of choice)?, is it encouraging me to run around on the platform before jumping towards any train irrespective of whether the doors are open, or the train is even stationary?, what is a 'Caution Gap'?

| 19.09.15 - 7:49 a.m. | #

Signs are intended to provide education as much as an immediate warning. DG's analysis is but one interpretation. Over many years I was amazed how people could read things into signs. DG says that MIND THE GAP is completely clear yet I used to work with foreign transport professionals, some of whom asked me what it meant.

Any ideas how to do it better would, I am sure, be welcome

100andthirty | 19.09.15 - 8:01 a.m. | #

Your tongue may be in your cheek DG but this is just a process to regularize warning signs according to the ISO standards. Yellow Triangle warning signs.... look inside the tube carriages: there are lots of H&S ISO compliant signs already!

B | 19.09.15 - 8:02 a.m. | #

Are there statistics for the number of people who are injured each year, due to failing to mind the caution gap, or to hold the handrail?

It seems pretty clear to me, but I wonder if there are better designs.

Andrew | 19.09.15 - 8:04 a.m. | #

DG you've had me laughing my head off again. Love the passenger attempting to step into the drivers cabin bit! Might be an interesting job trying to work out how best to give warnings actually! Shame we cant just all take responsibility for ourselves and not have warnings/ cautions/ restrictions etc. etc. shoved down our throats every five minutes. (I wonder how many accidents occur because of someone stopping inappropriately to read all the information/cautions signs)

AliE17 | 19.09.15 - 8:37 a.m. | #

The real question is 'what marketing potential does it have for T-Shirts, boxers, panties, Tea-Towels, key-rings, etc.?'

Antipodean | 19.09.15 - 9:06 a.m. | #

Unfortunately DG has misconstrued the signs.

They denote sponsorship of the platform by Channel 4 and the GAP clothes store.

Gerry | 19.09.15 - 10:15 a.m. | #

I "got" the pictorial representation at first sight- reminded me of the very similar signs in Hong Kong's MTR.

anon | 19.09.15 - 10:34 a.m. | #

Anon has definitely got the point.

Patrickov | 19.09.15 - 1:34 p.m. | #

And yet...... For the first time in over fifty years travelling on the Underground I was at risk from a fellow passenger. I was on a down escalator yesterday when the person in front of me, who had a large suitcase with them but was apparently young and fit, fell over without warning just before the bottom and only just managed to roll out of the way before I and several other passengers hit them. There would certainly have been injuries, possibly bad ones, as the escalator was busy. So next time I see any warning notice or one of those annoying suitcase trap railings on an escalator I will restrain my natural instincts to mutter about " 'elf and safety gone mad".

westville 13 | 19.09.15 - 2:35 p.m. | #

My mind does not do pictograms easily.
My mind sees that graphic as a stylised '4'.
If I look at the graphic for AGES, I can interpret it.

I can read 'MIND THE GAP' in half a second.

I can't be alone. Standardising the signs might actually endanger an Anglophone majority.

Helen D Vecht | 19.09.15 - 3:43 p.m. | #

I agree with Helen. I think it looks like a man playing football with a giant budgie.

Tony (Somerset) | 19.09.15 - 4:33 p.m. | #

The "gap" at my local station is big enough to swallow a man - as I can confirm from personal experience. (Some wag suggested I had taken the sign to "alight here for ____ Hospital" too literally).
My oh-so sympathetic family bought me a "Mind the Gap" T-shirt - my excuse for it not fitting me any more is that I have deliberately increased my circumference as a precaution against it happening again.

timbo | 19.09.15 - 4:54 p.m. | #

I wonder if in the future will these signs start to lose their adhesion and lift up and become a potential trip hazard?

Barry | 19.09.15 - 6:16 p.m. | #

DG's analysis of stepping into the driver's cab, wonky rail and so on arises from the trap of using real-world perspective on pictograms. Pictograms have their own kind of perspective, rather similar to children's pictures of humans, whose face is always towards the camera but whose feet are walking sideways, and they have hands rather like stars (pictorial stars, not points of light) and are always wearing a skirt if female, like toilet signs, and, err, where was I?....

Malcolm | 19.09.15 - 7:16 p.m. | #

Is it a mind the gap to the mind the gap sign?

Karl, Dover | 19.09.15 - 7:31 p.m. | #

Danger!!! The Dreadful Gap is likely to appear here! Beware!

Leuconoe | 19.09.15 - 8:23 p.m. | #

The part of the pictogram that represents the train looked to me at first like a triangle and a circle on a black background. Took me a full 30 seconds to work out what it all meant.

Great Aunt Annie | 19.09.15 - 9:41 p.m. | #

The pictogram with its double arrow has a certain visual similarity to one I regularly see on a tramway in Germany, with one crucial difference. That other sign indicates the presence of a sliding step, which extends from the train and (almost) closes the gap before the door opens.

Joachim | 19.09.15 - 9:43 p.m. | #

In the second photo, what's the significance of the second 'gap' , oriented to be read from 'in' the gap?

NLW | 19.09.15 - 10:26 p.m. | #

The second 'gap' is meant to be read by those stepping off the train... except somebody's painted a white square over 'Mind the'. It all reads perfectly further down the platform.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 19.09.15 - 10:30 p.m. | #

Daleks don't have gap trouble.

Great Aunt Annie | 20.09.15 - 12:13 a.m. | #

Well...get rid off the ****** gap, end of problem.

Grumpy Anon | 20.09.15 - 12:21 a.m. | #

Rwctangles (rail cars) running round curves sadly leads to gaps. However perhaps they could close curved platform stations. A nice list for DG to compile

dg writes: They try not to build them any more, but they couldn't possibly close all of the old ones.

100andthirty | 20.09.15 - 7:57 a.m. | #

@ Westville 13 - having witnessed an escalator, luggage and people pile up at Heathrow T123 tube station I am well aware how dangerous they can be. I understand why people go "oh heck not more H&S signs / warnings" but there is actually a point about them. People misjudge things, they don't perceive risks and people get hurt.

The platform / train interface (PTI) was the highest risk on LU a few years back and I imagine the huge increase in usage since then has worsened things somewhat. Network Rail is years behind LU in managing this risk - all set out in an ORR report about a year ago. ORR did warn LU that its changing circumstances - fewer staff, more passengers, more trains - meant they had to keep on top of their management processes and mitigations.

PC | 20.09.15 - 8:06 a.m. | #

I just tried to imagine the safety graphic for 'watch where you are going instead of staring at your &^%^! smart device with your &^&% ear-buds in and music playing full blast'.

If you Google 'Dumb ways to die' you will see Melbourne's rail safety campaign.

Antipodean | 20.09.15 - 9:15 a.m. | #

Back in the '80s I feel down the gap at Cannon Street on the way to work. One leg down the gap the other one on the platform, yes I do have long legs.

Graham | 20.09.15 - 9:22 a.m. | #

Caution: warning signs may be slippery

Julian Bond | Homepage | 20.09.15 - 11:06 a.m. | #

How about a graphic for "This door is alarmed" - something like Munch's The Scream perhaps?

Autolycus | Homepage | 20.09.15 - 11:09 a.m. | #

I'm a big fan of the rabbit by Paris metro doors showing you don't want to get your fingers caught when they close. Much clearer than an ISO approved triangle.

ap | 20.09.15 - 3:19 p.m. | #

DG.... sadly the newest station on the Underground has curved platforms.......Wood Lane.

100andthirty | 20.09.15 - 8:46 p.m. | #

lifts on the Overground now have stickers warning you about the doors - has there been a spate of finger entrapments lately?

martin | 20.09.15 - 9:37 p.m. | #

This is probably where they get that inspiration.

ifurkend | 20.09.15 - 11:11 p.m. | #

"If I look at the graphic for AGES, I can interpret it. I can read 'MIND THE GAP' in half a second. I can't be alone."
You're not. But then there's a large portion of the population who are different to you and who get the graphic straight away, but have to think about the use of the word "mind". To "improper" English-speakers (such as Kiwis like me), the "mind" in Mind the Gap is an unfamiliar, archaic, usage.
But not completely unknown: when I was young, there were signs that cautioned us to "Mind that child: he may be deaf", and we often heard the expression "mind how you go" on British TV programmes.
In NZ (and possibly Australia) "mind" has come to mean "to watch over, look after", rather than "be mindful of...".

Clunking Fist | 21.09.15 - 1:40 a.m. | #

I actually quite like these new signs popping up everywhere. First seen at Kings Cross in April https://twitter.com/msheldrake/status/591199628189663232
Danger Keep off The Track
Risk of Life Changing Injuries and
Take Care Of Your Device
Dropped items cause delays

Shellers | 21.09.15 - 9:30 p.m. | #

But seriously - when I walk on to a train, I am quite aware that there may be a difference in the floor I am walking on. I would probably look down and see the gap and think "Ooh, must watch out for that"

Are people really that stupid we need this warning anyway?

Kirk | 22.09.15 - 6:59 a.m. | #











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