Peter Beale writes:
On a recent trip it struck me that in the USA there is far more actual
reading than here...

Quite true. This comes from being a country with one dominant language
and not having signs harmonized with other countries with other languages.

Canadian signage is mostly like the US, but with greater use of symbols.

- although they do use arrows and other symbols,
there is much of "LEFT TURNS MUST TURN LEFT",

Would you believe "LEFT LANE MUST TURN LEFT"?

"WRONG WAY", "RIGHT HAND LANE ENDS IN 100 FEET" and the like. Also
that they tend to use "feet" rather than "yards" for horizontal
distances ...

Well, sure. Yards are for football. In real life people use feet
(unless they're Canadian and use metric).

Ob London Transport: for the first-time North American visitor to London,
the most amusing commonly seen sign is probably "WAY OUT".
--
Mark Brader "It is considered a sign of great {winnitude}
Toronto when your Obs are more interesting than other
people's whole postings." --Eric Raymond

My text in this article is in the public domain.