In which direction is traffic prohibited?

Explanation

A right turn into the second entrance.

The only prohibitory sign in this picture is the red circle on the right with a struck-through right-turn arrow. The zone of effect of such a sign is the junction or entrance immediately following it; not the entrances before it and not all the entrances after it. In the picture, the sign's post is planted after the mouth of the first entrance and right beside the mouth of the second. So the first entrance ended before you reached the sign and is free, and what is closed is the right turn into the second entrance.

The reason for this method of placement is entirely one of safety: the driver must see the prohibition far enough before the point of the manoeuvre to decide without hard braking and without a hasty lane change. If a sign were to cover the entrances behind it, the driver would still not have seen the sign when passing them — a rule impossible to obey.

The blue sign in the middle of the picture is from the family of mandatory signs and shows how to move within the junction itself; it prohibits nothing and plays no part in answering this question.

Common trap: imagining that the prohibition continues "to the end" from the point of the sign. Turn-prohibition signs have a very short life: just one junction.

• The first entrance lies before the sign's post; a sign does not work backwards and a right turn at that point remains permitted. • To close both entrances, a sign would have to be posted before the first one too; a single turn-prohibition sign closes only one junction or one entrance.

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