LOCAL councils are coming under pressure to follow Germany’s example and scrap millions of confusing and pointless signs that clutter British roadsides.

Groups including the RAC Foundation and the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) say the signs are increasingly distracting drivers rather than guiding them – as well as disfiguring views.

The move follows a campaign in Germany by its national motoring organisation designed to remove half of the country’s estimated 20m road signs. Germany is one of Europe’s most heavily signposted countries but in the past year alone one city has discarded a fifth of its signs.

Sheila Rainger, the RAC Foundation’s head of campaigns, said: “Too much information can be as detrimental to road safety as none at all.”

Paul Miner, planning campaign manager for the CPRE, said: “Councils should see the removal of signs as an investment, not as a budgetary constraint. They will have fewer signs to clean and mend and reduce accidents. The decluttering of the countryside will also encourage rural tourism.”

Signs have proliferated as local authorities have become preoccupied with minimising risks on Britain’s increasingly crowded roads. The latest Highway Code has 205 signs listed, a rise of more than 40% since 1968. This does not include more obscure symbols such as a warning of frogs crossing.

However, research by the car manufacturer Vauxhall has found nearly half of motorists cannot understand even the most basic of the signs, including that for a dead end.

It is estimated there are more than 11m signs nationwide, managed by the Highways Agency on major trunk roads and motor-ways and by local councils everywhere else. Low Street, which runs through the village of South Milford, North Yorkshire, has been identified by the CPRE as the most cluttered road in rural England with 45 signs in half a mile. They include low bridge, speed, cycle lane and pedestrian signs.

Campaigners argue that if drivers are no longer distracted by too many instructions they will concentrate better on the road. They believe motorists are also likely to reduce speeds if, for example, they have to work out for themselves how sharply the road bends rather than being told on a sign.

A pilot project in Norfolk has resulted in speeds being cut by 7mph after more than half the road signs were cleared from the village of Starston. In Hampshire, the RAC Foundation is working with the county council on a trial to cut signage in accident black-spots. If accidents fall, the scheme is likely to be extended.

Britain, however, has done far less than Germany, where they have developed a set procedure for thinning out what motorists call the “schilderwald” (sign forest) – prime targets include the country’s 32 different signs telling drivers how to park next to a kerb. They regulate down to details such as the hours in which a car may be parked wholly, partly or not at all on the kerb.

Signs identified as superfluous are first covered with plastic hoods for several weeks. If no complaints are received they are then removed. The German national motoring organisation has been working with local authorities for almost a decade. It has cleared signs in partnership with 150 towns and cities, although these represent only 2% of the country’s local authorities.

The RAC Foundation said the technique, which has seen 1,000 signs – a fifth of the total – removed in the past year from Trois-dorf, near Cologne, could provide a template for Britain. “If one sign is covered and there are a lot of complaints, the decision can be reversed easily,” said Rainger. “It is good that action is being taken in this way. It looks like a good way of dealing with inappropriate road signs.”

Alan Duncan, shadow secretary for business, enterprise and regulatory reform, who tabled a private member’s bill on road signage earlier this year, said: “They [the signs] are making our streets look like the backside of a derelict city.”

He pointed to one particular “sign crime” in Leicester that announced a new road lay-out and had been in place for more than a decade. “Putting a hood over unnecessary signs is a fantastic idea,” he said. “I love it.”

But Paul Watters, head of roads policy at the AA, defended council policies. “Authorities have a duty of care to keep roads safe and they are terrified of litigation if they remove a sign and somebody crashes.”

A spokesman for the transport department said: “It is for local traffic authorities to determine what signing they consider necessary. Appropriate traffic warning signs greatly assist road safety. But to be most effective they should be used sparingly.”