The Department for Transport is reviewing traffic signs policy and new advice on how to reduce clutter will be published later this year.

When busy Kensington High Street in central London was stripped of excess road furniture, for example, it helped reduce accidents by 47 percent.

For signs to be most effective, ministers say, they should be kept to a minimum.

Hammond said the abundance of so-called street furniture often makes towns resemble "scrapyards（废品堆放场）," confusingmotorists（开汽车的人）and obstructingpedestrians（行人）.

The government says that in some cases traffic signs are installed by councils in the mistaken belief they are legally required, when they are not.

"Our streets are losing their English character," Pickles said. "We are being overrun byscruffy（破旧的，不整洁的）signs,bossy（跋扈的，浮雕装饰的）bollards,patchwork（拼凑物，混杂物）paving and railed-off roads -- wasting taxpayers' money that could be better spent on fixingpotholes（凹坑）."

Ministers want the public to inform local authorities of particularly bad examples of excess signage, to clean up the national landscape.

Even traffic lights are in thefiring line（作战最前线，射击线）.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles and Transport Secretary Philip Hammond has written to local council leaders in England, calling on them to cut the number ofunsightly（丢脸的，不雅的）signs and other "streetclutter（杂乱，混乱）."

日前，英国政府呼吁拆除过多的路标、栏杆和广告牌，称这些街道举措措施破坏了英国城镇的景观。

The British government has declared war on the profusion of unnecessary road traffic signs, railings and advertising boards, saying they blight towns' English character.