Gareth wrote:For shapes of roads I think surprises are points of learning.
Trying to see a road fresh might be a good exercise but if it really were fresh would you always miss the same things, or would it vary each time?
I'm a little bit bothered by an analytical approach because it can bring things into the conscious, taking unconscious attention away from where it's needed. Broadly, I prefer trying to develop unconscious attention by paying particular attention to surprises, however small ... and any feelings of disquiet or unease.
In my case, it was part of a 'self-challenge', to deliberately look for a certain type of information that - because I knew the road so well (I'd been travelling it regularly since 1983) - I wouldn't consciously be looking for.
Another time, several years ago, I was consciously looking at signs along my daily commute route. Although just a few miles, I found:
- school triangular warning sign and painted zig zags, outside a housing development where a school used to be
- triangular warning sign, for a junction on the right, just before a blind crest where the junction had been replaced by a mini roundabout