I’m used to the blue bridleway, yellow footpath and occasional red byway signs, but this is a new one to me.

Picture 005 by Vegan Graham, on Flickr

It’s at the side of a normal tarmac lane with road signs and give way markings at each end. I don’t know how anyone could mistake it for anything other than a public road.
It’s the only one I know of round here.
Are they more common elsewhere ?

It’s on the lane from Heightington to Deasland.
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=376500&Y=271500&A=Y&Z=120

It means it’s a main road. Specifically a Worcester Pearmain road

But don’t James Greave about it.

it denotes the Worcestershire way. a distance footpath across our fine county

Maybe it’s been thought of as a private lane in the past?

it’s nothing to do with rights of way. it’s just a ramblers long distance route waymarker

I think the op is on about the Blue one that says public road, not the path waymarker

sorry, can’t see the writing on the image
I think it’s still to do with the WW marker and is just for walkers info as much of the route is more normally on paths

Maybe it’s to warn the ramblers that they might encounter traffic so that they don’t walk 8 abreast around blind bends?

Maybe it’s to warn the ramblers that they might encounter traffic so that they don’t walk 8 abreast around blind bends?

That’s never stopped them in these parts.

Public road – sometimes published on OS maps as an ORPA (Other Route of Public Access)

ORPA’s often have public vehicular rights (ie, motorised) but are not necessarily tarmac serviced,

legally the above route would appear to be a road maintainable at public expense (ie. recorded on the “list of streets” by the council rather than on the rights of way map) so would have full vehicular rights unless a TRO was imposed) I would imagine the sign was there to clarify that the route was not a private track.

In other words, you’ve just found a new legal trail that was not on the map 😀

wot no op+1 😆

It’s the top one I meant. The writing says “Public Road”.
The bottom one says “Worcestershire Way”. I see them, or similar Long Distance Path markers, all over the place.
It’s on a normal tarmac lane. If you drove in to it from either end you’d have no reason to suspect it was not a public road.

The only explanation I could think of was, as IanMmmm says, it’s to warn ramblers who step out on the road from the footpath across the field that they might encounter traffic.
If you look on the map I linked to, you’ll see the WW coincides with public roads in a few places. This is the only example of this type of sign I know of. Maybe I would find others if I looked for them.
I just wondered if anyone else had seen them.