How to read the blue boards

Road safety - How to read the "blue boards"

In an emergency it is important to know exactly where you are located on the route so that you can tell the emergency services where to find you. The faster the emergency services can find an incident the better they can respond.

There are small unique blue marker boards, such as the one shown below, located every 200 m along the Bakwena N1N4 Toll Highway providing you with a reference point that can be communicated to the emergency services so that they can find you quickly.

All National routes are divided into sections and 200 m sub-sections. By communicating the information on the nearest blue marker board, you will be letting the emergency services know, within 100 m accuracy, where you are along the route as the information provided on the boards tells you:

which national route you are on;
which section of that National route you are on;
which 200m sub-section of the route you are on.

As an example the board pictured above indicates you are on the N1, in Section 22, 0.2km from the start of Section 22 travelling in a Southerly direction.

On double carriageway roads there are blue marker boards in each direction of the road.