What Are The Four Types of Safety Signs?

The four compulsory UK workplace safety signs, which are: emergency exits, fire safety, prohibition and road traffic regulation signs. These four types of signs can then be split up into four different groups:

1. Emergency

2. Warning

3. Prohibition

4. Mandatory

1. Emergency

Emergency signs are used to indicate where emergency facilities or equipment are located. This can include signs for emergency exits, first aid and safety equipment, and there are then specific safety signs you can purchase within these sign subcategories, such as a ‘running man up arrow’ exit sign, or a ‘first aiders are’ first aid sign. These signs will be recognisable as being in a green rectangle in the UK.

2. Warning

Warning safety signs will make workers aware of potential hazards and dangers that are not necessarily life-threatening. These can include signs such as a ‘caution hot surface’ sign, or ‘danger live wires’ sign. These signs will have a yellow triangle with the hazard itself appearing in black within the triangle.

3. Prohibition

Prohibition signs inform workers what actions and behaviour is not acceptable within the workplace. Examples of this sign are ‘no smoking’, ‘no children’ and ‘no pedestrian access’. Similarly to the warning signs, the hazard will be shown in black but with a red circle with a slash going through the hazard.

4. Mandatory

Mandatory safety signs will indicate an action like a prohibition sign, however a mandatory sign will not be a negative action but an action that must be carried out. These actions can include ‘automatic fire door keep clear’ sign, or a ‘eye protection must be worn’ sign. Typically for a mandatory sign a blue circle will be used  with white text.

These four types of safety signs are effective tools to communicate messages, instructions and safety demands to workers and employees, especially with the universal readability of most safety signs as they are pictorial.

For more information about what types of safety signs should be used in the workplace and how to stay safe while at work, visit our MorSafe shop, or contact us at 01686 611 377 or sales@morsafesupplies.com.