2.4 Informatory Signs & the Shape–Colour Master Table
Key Takeaways
- Informatory signs are rectangular or square, usually blue or green, and give directions, distances, and facilities without ordering any behaviour
- A blue rectangle with a single white arrow marks a one-way street; a blue square with a white P marks parking; a blue square with H marks a hospital
- The triangular pedestrian-crossing WARNING sign appears in advance of the crossing; the blue square informatory sign marks the crossing itself
- Direction boards list towns with distances in kilometres — advance signs before a junction, finger-posts at it, confirmatory signs after it
- Master pattern for the exam: triangle warns, red circle forbids, blue circle commands, rectangle informs, grey slash ends a restriction
2.4 Informatory Signs & the Shape–Colour Master Table
Quick Answer: Informatory signs are rectangular or square, usually blue or green, and they never order you to do anything — they tell you where you are, where things are, and how far away they lie. Learn them alongside the master table at the end of this section: triangle warns, red circle forbids, blue circle commands, rectangle informs.
What Informatory Signs Do
Everything you have studied so far in this chapter changes your behaviour: a triangle makes you slow down, a red circle stops you doing something, a blue circle makes you do something. Informatory signs are different in kind. They exist to help you navigate and find facilities, and disobeying them is not a concept — there is nothing to disobey. That does not make them unexaminable. The DVLA tests them precisely because candidates who have crammed the "commanding" signs sometimes read a rectangle as an order.
Most informatory signs are blue rectangles or squares with white symbols. Green boards are used on primary routes and motorways, and white or local-colour boards for minor destinations.
The Signs You Must Recognise
- One-way street: a blue rectangle with a single white arrow pointing along the permitted direction of travel. Traffic the other way is prohibited, which is why the far end of the street is guarded by the red no-entry disc from Section 2.2. Contrast it carefully with the blue circle arrow, which is a mandatory instruction about your own next movement.
- Parking: a blue square with a white letter P. Parking is available here; supplementary plates may add distance, direction, hours, or payment conditions. Do not confuse it with the red-slashed no-parking disc — one invites, the other restricts.
- Hospital: a blue square with a white H (some versions show a bed). It guides you toward a hospital or clinic. Drive quietly nearby: health-facility zones commonly carry a no-horn restriction and the 30 km/h limit applies.
- Pedestrian crossing (informatory): a blue square containing a white triangle with a walking figure, marking the actual location of the crossing and working with the zebra stripes painted on the road. Contrast it with the triangular warning sign from Section 2.1, which appears in advance. The exam loves this pair: triangle warns it is coming; blue square shows where it is.
- Dead end / no through road: a red or black T-shape on a blue square. The road does not connect onward — useful in dense urban layouts where a wrong turn costs you a reversing manoeuvre in a narrow street.
- Bus stop, telephone, first aid, fuel, and service signs: blue squares with the relevant white symbol, marking facilities on or beside the route.
- Motorway and expressway boards: green rectangles marking where motorway regulations begin and end, for example on the Accra–Tema Motorway. Where those rules apply, pedestrians, bicycles, and animals are prohibited.
Route and Direction Signs
Large rectangular boards naming towns ahead with distances in kilometres are the workhorses of Ghanaian long-distance driving. Learn the three positions in which they appear, because the exam asks about them by function:
| Sign | Where it appears | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Advance direction sign | Before the junction | Lets you choose your lane early |
| Finger-post / flag sign | At the junction itself | Points along the actual turning |
| Confirmatory sign | After the junction | Reassures you that you took the right road, and repeats distances |
A board reading "Kumasi 250" on the way out of Accra is giving you a distance in kilometres, not a speed, a toll, or a count of anything. Nearer destinations are listed first, higher on the board, which is why the top line changes as you travel while the bottom line stays put.
The Shape + Colour Master Table
This table is the single most valuable revision aid in the whole road-signs chapter. Most sign questions on the DVLA test can be answered from shape and colour alone, before you decode the symbol at all.
| Shape | Colour | Category | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Triangle, point up | Red border, white inside | Warning | Hazard ahead — slow down, prepare to stop |
| Circle | Red border, white inside | Prohibitory | You must NOT do this (limits, no entry, bans) |
| Circle | Blue background | Mandatory | You MUST do this (keep left, turn, circulate) |
| Octagon | Red with white word | Regulatory (Stop) | Stop completely at the line, always |
| Inverted triangle | Red border | Regulatory (Give Way) | Yield to traffic on the major road |
| Rectangle / square | Blue or green | Informatory | Directions, distances, facilities — no order |
| Circle | Grey with black slash | End of restriction | The previous limit or ban no longer applies |
Drill it until the mapping is automatic: triangle warns, red circle forbids, blue circle commands, rectangle informs, grey slash releases. With that one sentence, a large share of the DVLA theory exam becomes pattern recognition rather than memorisation.
Putting the Chapter Together
Work through any unfamiliar sign in this fixed order and you will rarely be wrong:
- What shape is it? That gives you the family.
- What colour is the border or fill? That tells you whether it warns, forbids, commands, or informs.
- Only then read the symbol to learn the specific subject.
- Check for a supplementary plate beneath it — distances, times, vehicle classes, and arrows routinely narrow a sign's application.
The fourth step catches the hardest questions in the bank, where the sign itself is easy but a plate restricts it to goods vehicles, to certain hours, or to a stated distance ahead.
On a blue rectangular board ahead you see town names with figures such as Kumasi 250 beside them. What is this sign telling you?
Which pair of signs correctly distinguishes an advance warning of a pedestrian crossing from the marking of the crossing itself?