Safety Signs

The Health and Safety Information for Employees Regulations 1989 made it a legal requirement for all employers to display a Health and Safety Law Poster. This informs readers of employer and employee duties within the modern framework of health and safety law including risk assessment and employee responsibilities. The Health and Safety (Safety signs and signals) Regulations 1996 and the European Safety Signs Directive (92/58/EEC) aim to standardise safety signs across Europe and ensure that there is no risk of safety signs being misunderstood by non English speaking people. The Legislation requires employers to use a safety sign whenever there is a risk that cannot be controlled by any other means. It also enforces that all safety signs contain a pictogram and increases the number of safety symbols used. This law includes fire safety signs.

For maximum impact, safety signs should not be located in a place containing a number of other signs or objects of similar size and colour. Safety signs should not be located in areas where colour contrast is poor, eg a red sign on a red wall. Staff and visitors should be able to understand the distinctive colour and geometric shape of safety signs as well as the detail of any graphical symbol signs used. For fire exit safety signs, it is preferable to use additional reinforcing directional safety signs rather than rely on one larger safety sign. British Standard BS 5499-4 code of practice for escape route signs offers best advice on how to combine the BS 5499 running man with text and arrows to produce a well designed escape route sign. It recommends the correct mounting position and location for escape safety signs and is as follows: Fire exit and exit safety signs should be evenly spread and consistently located at the same height so that the evacuee can quickly and effectively predict the position of the next sign within the escape route. Safety signs should not be fitted to doors or placed where they may be obscured by open doors. Wall mounted signs sited on walls should be mounted between 1.7m - 2.0m from ground level to the base of the sign to ensure that they are easily noticed.