Signposts - North America, Australia and New Zealand - Colour Schemes

Colour Schemes

The North American, Australian and New Zealand colours normally have these meanings:

• red with white for stop signs, yield, and forbidden actions (such as No Parking)
• green with white letters for informational signs, such as directions, distances, and places
• brown with white letters for signs to parks, historic sites, ski areas, forests, and campgrounds
• blue with white symbols for rest areas, food, gasoline, hospitals, lodging, and other services
• white with black (or red) letters for regulatory signs, such as speed limits (or parking)
• yellow with black letters and symbols for warning signs, such as curves and school zones
• orange with black letters for temporary traffic control zones and detours associated with road construction
• purple for "lanes restricted to use only by vehicles with registered electronic toll collection (ETC) accounts", such as EZPass.
• black with white letters or arrows for lane use.

The US Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices prescribes four other colours:

• fluorescent yellow-green for school zone, school bus stop, pedestrian, playground, and bicycle warning signs
• fluorescent pink for incident management signs
• coral and light blue, which are unassigned.

Regulatory signs are also sometimes seen with white letters on red or black signs. In Quebec, blue is often used for public services such as rest areas; many black-on-yellow signs are red-on-white instead.

Many US states and Canadian provinces now use fluorescent orange for construction signs.