A road sign warning drivers to exercise caution when elderly people cross the road has offended senior citizen groups who say it falsely portrays today's fitter, healthier aged population.
The London sign features a silhouette of an elderly couple crossing the road. A man is carrying a cane, and both people appear hunch over. The design for "elderly people crossing" was a favorite entry from a 1981 children's competition.
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Age Concern and Help the Aged, two senior citizen groups, are calling the sign insulting and suggesting replacement with a politically correct, age-neutral version, the Daily Mail reported.
Barry Earnshaw, Age Concern Lincoln chief executive, said, "I am 65, so therefore I am considered an elderly person. The sign doesn't represent older people as they are today. There should be a generic sign that is representative of all vulnerable pedestrians, regardless of age."
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Help the Aged senior policy officer Lizzy McLennan told the paper, "The sign portrays a small proportion of the older generation.They are assuming everyone who is old looks like that, and they don't."
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While the black and white "elderly people" placard was removed from the sign in 2003, a spokesman for the Highways Agency said replacement of the road sign would be expensive and would require modifications to the law.
"To change every sign in the country would cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of pounds – and a change in the law," he said. "It's not a simple process, and I don't think most people would see it as a high priority for government spending."
The Taxpayers' Alliance said protest over the street signs is absurd, and a redesign would be a waste of money.
Campaign director Mark Wallace told the Daily Mail, "They should pay more attention to the real concerns of older people – rising taxes and soaring household bills."
