This road sign indicates

Explanation

Pulling off onto the shoulder is dangerous because of repair work.

It is a combination of two elements: a red triangle with the image of a worker and a shovel means "roadworks", and the supplementary plate beneath it shows a vehicle whose wheel edge has dropped onto an uneven, dug-out shoulder — the "dangerous shoulder" plate. This plate prohibits nothing; it tells you that the surface beside the carriageway cannot be relied on.

In the photograph you see an intercity road with a white edge line, and further on to the right, signs and markers of a work site. If you pull onto the shoulder to move over, to let the vehicle behind past or for a short stop, the shoulder may be dug out, soft or subsided. The right-hand wheel drops, the vehicle is pulled sharply to the right, and the driver's instinctive reaction — a hard turn of the wheel to the left to get back onto the asphalt — is exactly what throws the vehicle sideways into the opposing lane. This sign closes off precisely that crash.

The right approach is simple: within the works zone, reduce speed, increase your following distance and stay off the shoulder; if you must stop, find a safe place rather than the first earth verge.

Worth memorising: a supplementary plate beneath a warning sign is itself a warning, not a prohibition. The exam trap is that the image of a vehicle at the road's edge leads the mind towards parking rules; whereas a parking prohibition is announced by round blue signs, not by the supplementary plate of a warning triangle.

• A parking prohibition is announced by a round blue sign with a diagonal line; a supplementary plate beneath a warning triangle creates no prohibition. • This combination says nothing at all about a permitted parking place, and permitting parking on the carriageway is the inverse of a warning.

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