Finland's traffic signage is facing a revamp as the Transport Agency looks to reconfigure the way it communicates with pedestrians and motorists. The new signs come as part of a broad transport reform currently going through parliament, and will see the signs switch to use more gender-neutral figures.
The signs will de-emphasise the physical attributes of the characters portrayed, leading to a more gender-neutral sign.
"In the reform it doesn't really matter whether it's a man or a woman," said Jukka Hopeavuori of the Transport Agency. "The important thing is that the figure in the sign walks, or shows the appropriate action."
The majority of the road signs currently in use will be redesigned, in the first large-scale redesign since the 1980s. Back then the work was undertaken by official designers under ministry guidance, whereas now the design work has been outsourced.
The goal of the redesign is to improve the visibility and clarity of the signage, and to introduce a few dozen completely new signs.
One new sign will be the minimum speed sign, which will mandate the slowest possible speed a driver can hit on that section of the road.
