The camera car has been driving around since September 2008. The car, just like the one used for Google Street View, has a 360-degree camera on its roof, which takes a picture every five metres. That’s a total of 13 million photographs, all of which are now fed into a Road Signs Database. A full inventory has still to be completed, said a spokeswoman for mobility minister Hilde Crevits, who was present last week for the completion of the camera car’s mission. But at the latest count, Flanders has about 1.1 million road signs.

By coincidence, the motoring organisation Touring last week released the results of a survey carried out among 1,600 drivers indicating that there are too many road signs. According to them, 65% of the signs are not clear, because they cannot be seen or because their message is confusing. And 80% of drivers would like all road signs to be standardised across the EU.

One of the purposes of the Road Signs Database will be to cut down the number of signs on the roads. Over the years, signs have grown up like weeds, new signs often placed with no regard to signs already in situ. The result is a proliferation of signs, making them difficult to read properly and affecting safety. Our picture, a single frame from the Database, shows the forest of signs at one junction on the Keetberglaan alongside the E34 near Antwerp.

The Database will also be used to rationalise speed limits, with the 13 million photos also able to provide information on other features of the local environment, such as lighting and the width of roads. Some speed restrictions might be lifted if local conditions allow; speed limits could also be lowered, on the basis of local criteria. Two other spin-offs: traffic police will be able to use the map of Flanders’ roads when making accident reports. And in the future, details from the database could be entered into GPS navigation systems.