Compulsory Signs

I. Read the text about road signs and say why they are so important. Use notes.

Unit 5. Road Signs

Flexible-Fuel Vehicle

A flexible-fuel vehicle (FFV) or a dual-fuel vehicle is an alternative fuel automobile or a light duty truck with a multi-fuel engine that can use more than one fuel, usually mixed in the same tank, and the blend is burned in the combustion chamber together. These vehicles are usually called flex-fuels, or flexi-fuels in Europe. FFVs are distinguished from bi-fuel vehicles, where two fuels are stored in separate tanks. The most common commercially available FFV in the world market is the ethanol flexible-fuel vehicle, with the major markets concentrated in the United States, Brazil, Sweden, and some other European countries.

In addition to flex-fuel vehicles running with ethanol, in the US and Europe there were successful test programs with methanol flex-fuel vehicles, known as M85 FFVs, and more recently there have been also successful tests using p-series fuels with E85 flex fuel vehicles, but this fuel is not yet available to the general public.

Notes: facilitate, v. – содействовать define, v. – определять

prohibitive, adj. – запрещающий compulsory, adj.– обязательный

legal offence, n. – нарушение закона

warning signs, n.– предупреждающие знаки

Traffic signs or road signs are signs erected at the side of roads to provide information to road users. In 1968, the European countries signed the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic Treaty, with the aim of standardizing traffic regulations in order to facilitate international road traffic and to increase road safety. The Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals, which at 30 June 2004 was signed by 52 countries, defines eight categories of signs:

- Danger warning signs

- Priority signs

- Prohibitivesigns

- Compulsorysigns

- Special regulation signs

- Information or service signs

- Direction, position, or indication signs

- Additional panels

All the compulsory signs are indicated in a circular form. The violation of traffic or road regulations indicated by these signs is a legal offence: