Two classes that ask nothing of you
Regulatory signs command. Warning signs alert. Guidance and information signs do neither — the regulations define their whole purpose as indicating a destination, direction, distance or amenity, or imparting general advice. There is no offence in ignoring one, because none of them tells you to do anything.
That is exactly why learners under-read them: nothing forces you to. But the test still asks what a given rectangle means, and the two classes are easy to tell apart once you know what to look for.
The one question that sorts them: is there an arrow?
A guidance sign is built around getting you somewhere. It carries an arrow, a distance, a route number, or some combination of the three, and its whole job is to keep you in the right lane for a destination you have already chosen.
An information sign does not. Its defining feature, in the manual's own words, is that it never displays a directional arrow. It states a fact — an exit is 200 metres ahead, you have right of way at the next intersection, this parking area connects to a bus service — and leaves the navigating to the guidance signs around it.
So a rectangle with an arrow is guidance. A rectangle with no arrow, stating a fact rather than a direction, is information. That single check answers most of the questions this section asks.
What each class actually contains
| Class | What it covers | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Guidance — location | Names a place you are entering or passing | A river name, a place name at a boundary |
| Guidance — route marker | Identifies the numbered route you are on | The shield showing a national or provincial route number |
| Guidance — direction | Points toward a destination, with an arrow | Fingerboard and stack signs at a junction |
| Guidance — freeway direction | Direction signs built for freeway speeds and exits | Overhead signs naming the next interchange |
| Guidance — tourism direction | Points to a tourist attraction, on a brown background | A sign to a nature reserve or heritage site |
| Information | States a fact, with no arrow | A freeway exit countdown, a right-of-way notice, a park-and-ride point |
The regulations list several more guidance families — diagrammatic, local direction, pedestrian and toll direction signs among them. The distinction above is the one the test turns on.
Colour sorts the guidance signs, but not by a rule worth memorising
Guidance sign backgrounds appear in green, blue and brown, and the manual is explicit that brown is reserved for tourism signs specifically — it is the one colour with a fixed, single meaning. Green is the background you will see most often, on ordinary direction and route signs. Blue turns up both as an information-sign colour and as an inset panel on an otherwise green freeway sign, marking a freeway-related destination within it.
Unlike the regulatory colour code, this is not a strict rule worth drilling pair by pair — it is closer to a convention that helps you sort a sign at a glance. If you see brown, you already know it is pointing at a tourist attraction and nothing else.
The countdown markers before a freeway exit
The three diagonal-bar markers on the left of a freeway are an information sign, not a guidance sign, and they are one of the more commonly asked about: three bars, two bars and one bar mark roughly 300, 200 and 100 metres before the exit they belong to.
They tell you how much road is left, not which lane to be in — that decision should already be made from the direction signs further back. Reading a countdown marker as your first notice of the exit, rather than your last chance to be in position, is the mistake they are built to prevent.
The mistake
Treating a green direction sign as an instruction to turn. It is not a command — it is telling you where a route goes, and you are free to ignore it and keep going straight if that route is not yours.
The second is reading a countdown marker as a lane count instead of a distance. Three bars does not mean three lanes to choose from; it means roughly 300 metres to go.
Signs and markings is the biggest section
Road signs and markings is the largest of the three sections on the learner's paper and it is passed on its own. The free readiness test scores each section separately, so you can see whether this is the one to work on.
Take the free readiness testCommon questions
What is the difference between a guidance sign and an information sign?
A guidance sign carries an arrow, a distance or a route number and directs you toward a destination. An information sign never carries a directional arrow — it states a fact, such as a freeway exit countdown or a right-of-way notice, and leaves navigation to the guidance signs around it.
What shape are guidance and information signs?
Rectangular. Neither class commands or prohibits anything, so neither needs the distinctive shapes reserved for control signs like the stop octagon or the yield triangle.
What do the countdown markers before a freeway exit mean?
Three, two and one diagonal bars mark roughly 300, 200 and 100 metres before the exit. They tell you how much distance is left, not which lane to choose — change lanes using the direction signs further back.
What colour is a tourism sign in South Africa?
Brown. It is the one guidance colour reserved for a single purpose — pointing to a tourist attraction — while green and blue are shared across several other guidance and information families.
Sources
- National Road Traffic Regulations, 2000 — regulation 285(1)(c)"Guidance or information, that is a road traffic sign indicating a destination, direction, distance, amenity, facility, place of interest, tourist attraction or location, or any combination of these, or a road traffic sign which imparts general information or advice to road users."
- National Road Traffic Regulations, 2000 — regulation 285(2)(a)(iii) and (iv)Class I road signs include, as guidance signs: location signs, route marker signs, direction signs, freeway direction signs, tourism direction signs, diagrammatic signs, local direction signs, pedestrian signs and toll direction signs — and, separately, information signs.
- SADC Road Traffic Signs Manual, Volume 1, Chapter 5 (May 2012) — §5.1, Introduction"The information sign class is a loosely structured group of signs covering a wide range of applications. The most dominant feature of information signs is that they do not display any directional arrow."
- SADC Road Traffic Signs Manual, Volume 1, Chapter 4 (May 2012) — §4.1.5, Colour Code"(a) the distance to the point of turn, or exit, displayed in WHITE on GREEN, BLUE, or BROWN; (b) the route numbers of the roads which are intersecting … displayed in YELLOW on GREEN, BLUE and very occasionally BROWN; (c) the interchange (EXIT) or junction number displayed in BLACK on WHITE."
- SADC Road Traffic Signs Manual, Volume 1, Chapter 1 (May 2012) — §1.1Records "the use of a yellow background colour for temporary road signs and the brown background colour for tourism signs" as conventions that have "received universal acceptance" in the SADC system.
- SA Learner Driver Manual, Section 2: Road Traffic Signs (Department of Transport, June 2012) — §6, Information SignsWorked examples used as facts, not quoted as prose: countdown signs IN3/IN2/IN1 mark roughly 300 m, 200 m and 100 m before a freeway exit; IN7 tells a driver they have right of way at the intersection ahead; IN9/IN10 mark a park-and-ride terminus with a bus or train service; IN12 marks an information centre or notice board.
Last updated 2026-09-23.