This road sign

Explanation

It warns of a crossing of the carriageway with a tram line.

The shape of the sign settles the matter: a white triangle with a red border belongs to the family of warning signs, and its role is only to announce a hazard ahead. The symbol inside the triangle is a tram car; that is, further on a tram line crosses your path and you must reduce speed and be ready to stop.

In the picture the street turns left just after the sign, and a hedge and a tall building block your view of the crossing point; that is why the sign is posted before the bend. The safety reason for this warning is twofold: first, a tram runs on rails, cannot swerve, and its braking distance is several times that of a car; second, the rails themselves and the paving around them are slippery in rain, and hard braking on them can spin the vehicle.

Worth memorising: a warning sign never gives priority and never takes it away. The fact that, at a junction of roads of equal status, a tram has priority over non-rail vehicles is a separate rule in the regulations and does not come out of this triangle. In the exam these two matters are usually mixed together deliberately in the options.

• Approaching a tram stop is announced by a rectangular blue information sign, not by a red warning triangle; the shape of the sign in the picture is a triangle. • An obligation to give way is brought by priority signs (the inverted triangle or the "minor road" sign); a warning sign creates no such duty.

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