The Friday Fillip

Though not the worst of its kind, this “signed post” is a visual equivalent of certain portions of the Income Tax Act. On a Friday morning at 8 a.m. with a couple of kids in the car and only two spots to choose from…

Yet signs like thse are the only way to go if you have to have microscopically small jurisdictions. Most of that spot legislating happens in neighbourhoods and on roads. The Ontario government, like the rest, I assume, puts the drivers’ handbook on line, with its pages on road signs. Like an Interpretation Act, the page on regulatory signs might help our early morning chauffeur if there were a Black Berry handy.

Now, there aren’t many images here: the P, the P struck out, and the arrows (left and right). Some signs that regulate conduct are a good deal more dependent on icons, and what I wonder — and don’t know about — is whether there are statutes or regulations (leave aside by-laws for the moment) that, using both images and words, explicitly set out equivalences between them — for example, between the P-in-the-circle and the word “parking,” or, indeed, the phrase “parking is permitted between the hours of…” Or must our “real” laws all be in words alone?