07/10/2026
⚠️ IT’S ONLY A ROAD SIGN… WHAT COULD GO WRONG?
We regularly see exterior cleaning companies advertising road-sign cleaning as another easy service to add to the business.
Pull the van over. Get the water-fed pole out. Give the sign a clean. Job done.
Except it isn’t that simple.
At ProClean Direct, if we’re asked to undertake work on or immediately adjacent to a live highway, one of our first considerations is traffic management.
Why?
Because the hazard isn’t the dirty sign.
It’s the vehicles potentially travelling past you at 40, 50, 60 or 70 mph.
Working from a verge or roadside can introduce risks including moving traffic, inadequate separation from vehicles, poor visibility, restricted stopping distances, unsafe parking, operatives entering the carriageway, pedestrians and cyclists, equipment encroaching into the highway and vehicles leaving the road.
This is why proper Temporary Traffic Management (TTM) exists.
Depending upon the road, speed limit and work being undertaken, consideration may need to be given to:
* Signing, Lighting and Guarding
* Traffic Signs Manual – Chapter 8
* Appropriate advance warning signage
* Correct cones, tapers and safety zones
* Safe working space
* Vehicle positioning and access
* Pedestrian and cyclist management
* Site-specific risk assessment and method statement
* Competent people to design/install/manage the traffic-management arrangement
* Highway authority/client requirements
* Emergency arrangements
* Suitable insurance for the activity being undertaken
And this is important:
Putting a couple of cones behind your van doesn’t automatically constitute suitable traffic management.
On higher-speed roads and dual carriageways, the consequences of getting this wrong can be catastrophic.
At ProClean Direct, we’ve undertaken Signing, Lighting and Guarding training, but training also teaches you when not to undertake a job without the correct controls and arrangements in place.
Sometimes the professional answer is:
“We can’t safely do that in the current circumstances.”
That’s not losing work.
That’s competent health & safety management.
So, to anyone in the exterior-cleaning industry thinking of adding roadside sign cleaning to their services:
Please don’t treat it as just another water-fed-pole job.
Assess the road.
Assess the traffic.
Understand the applicable temporary traffic-management requirements.
Make sure you’re competent.
Make sure you’re insured.
And put the correct controls in place before the work starts.
A dirty road sign can wait. Norman - The Cleaning Guy
Getting everyone home safely can’t.
ProClean Direct | ProClean Safety & Training
Professional exterior cleaning backed by training, competence and safe systems of work.