If I could venture a guess - what distracted you?
This might be related to a particular peeve of mine:

Driving is a challenging activity, requiring sustained concentration, with a risk of severe, possibly fatal consequences if attention slips.

So why is it legal to deliberately distract drivers? I'm referring, of course, to roadside advertisements. A roundabout is a place for anticipating the actions of several drivers at once, each with differing probable actions. You don't need your eye drawn, however fleetingly, to a flourescent yellow sign telling you about a local car boot sale next week.

A motorway is technically a safer road, but that is not justification for parking up knackered lorry trailers in fields along the side to mount advertisements and steal your focus (and these usually seem to cluster around hills and bends, where your visibility is already reduced).

It seems self-evident to me that the fewer trivial distractions there are clamouring for consideration, the safer the roads will be.

These may not be such a problem for experienced drivers, who can pattern-filter out some of this stuff (possibly excepting the stuff that *tries* to look official or important to draw your attention - notice how "polite notice" looks a lot like "police notice" to peripheral vision, anyone?). But newer drivers need all the help they can get, and there will always be newer drivers.

Edit: D'oh! But my point stands - there's too much dreck clogging the roadsides. Let us concentrate on what we need to.
(The Incredible Sulk Finally remembered his password on, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 15:16, 1 reply)

....
He just made the story up.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 16:11, closed)