PassPre-Advance Exit Direction
Where: On the left-hand side of a freeway, or overhead, about 2 km before an off-ramp.
Purpose: To tell you early that there is an exit ahead and which routes and places it serves. It is the first board in the exit sequence.
Action Required by Driver: Decide now whether this is your exit. If it is, begin moving to the left-hand lane — you have two kilometres in which to do it calmly, and that is the whole point of the sign.
The sequence these signs belong to
Freeway exits are signed as a countdown, not as a single board. You are told about the exit at roughly 2 km, again at 1 km, confirmed at 500 m, and finally marked at the ramp itself. Count-down markers at 300, 200 and 100 metres finish the job.
The point of the sequence is lane position. By the 500 metre board you should already be in the left-hand lane. A driver who leaves it until the exit sign has to cross lanes late, which is how most off-ramp collisions begin.