diff --git a/modules/services/keepRight.js b/modules/services/keepRight.js
index 114bb119f..2889c8ec5 100644
--- a/modules/services/keepRight.js
+++ b/modules/services/keepRight.js
@@ -83,7 +83,7 @@ export default {
         _keepRightCache = { loaded: {}, inflight: {}, keepRight: {}, rtree: rbush()};
     },
 
-    loadKeepRight: function(context, projection, options, callback) {
+    loadKeepRightErrors: function(context, projection, options, callback) {
         options = _extend({ 'format': 'geojson' }, options);
         if (_off) return;
 
diff --git a/modules/svg/keepRight.js b/modules/svg/keepRight.js
index fc84d7677..33373a116 100644
--- a/modules/svg/keepRight.js
+++ b/modules/svg/keepRight.js
@@ -188,7 +188,7 @@ export function svgKeepRight(projection, context, dispatch) {
                     ch: [0,30,40,50,70,90,100,110,120,130,150,160,170,180,191,192,193,194,195,196,197,198,201,202,203,204,205,206,207,208,210,220,231,232,270,281,282,283,284,285,291,292,293,294,295,296,297,298,311,312,313,320,350,370,380,401,402,411,412,413]
                 };
 
-                service.loadKeepRight(context, projection, options, exampleCallback);
+                service.loadKeepRightErrors(context, projection, options, exampleCallback);
             } else {
                 editOff();
             }
diff --git a/modules/ui/keepRight_details.js b/modules/ui/keepRight_details.js
index 9e9cd65c1..f6d7c9967 100644
--- a/modules/ui/keepRight_details.js
+++ b/modules/ui/keepRight_details.js
@@ -11,11 +11,12 @@ export function uiKeepRightDetails(context) {
     var _templateErrorType;
     var _category;
     var _categoryElements;
-    var _parent_error_type = '';
+    var _parent_error_type;
     var _titleBase;
 
 
     function initDetails() {
+        _parent_error_type = '';
         if (errorTypes.errors['_' + _error.error_type]) {
             _templateErrorType = '_' + _error.error_type;
             _template = errorTypes.errors[_templateErrorType];
diff --git a/modules/util/keepRight/keepRight_error.js b/modules/util/keepRight/keepRight_error.js
index 8bbc647a4..8a9908384 100644
--- a/modules/util/keepRight/keepRight_error.js
+++ b/modules/util/keepRight/keepRight_error.js
@@ -50,7 +50,6 @@ var keepRightSchemaFromWeb = {
     'title': 'intersections without junctions, highway-waterway'
 };
 
-// TODO: clean up description parsing some: remove or ignore spurious characters
 export function parseErrorDescriptions(entity) {
     if (!(entity instanceof krError)) return;
 
@@ -60,11 +59,12 @@ export function parseErrorDescriptions(entity) {
     if (!matchingTemplate) return;
 
     // tokenize descriptions
-    var errorDescriptions = entity.description.split(' ');
-    var templateDescriptions = matchingTemplate.description.split(' ');
+    var errorDescription = entity.description.split(' ');
+    var templateDescription = matchingTemplate.description.split(' ');
 
     var parsedDescriptions = [];
-    var re = new RegExp(/{\$[0-9]}/);
+    var variable_re = new RegExp(/{\$[0-9]}/);
+    var html_re = new RegExp(/<\/[a-z][\s\S]*>/);
 
     var commonEntities = ['node', 'way', 'relation', 'highway', 'cycleway', 'waterway', 'riverbank']; // TODO: expand this list, or implement a different translation function
 
@@ -85,26 +85,26 @@ export function parseErrorDescriptions(entity) {
         return result;
     }
 
-    templateDescriptions.forEach(function(word, index) {
-        if (!re.test(word)) return;
+    templateDescription.forEach(function(word, index) {
+        if (!variable_re.test(word)) return;
 
         // get the word at this index, and at the next index value
-        var nextWord = templateDescriptions[index + 1] ? templateDescriptions[index + 1] : null;
+        var nextWord = templateDescription[index + 1] ? templateDescription[index + 1] : null;
 
         var parsedPhrase = '';
 
         // parse error description words
-        for (var i = index; i <= errorDescriptions.length - 1;  i++) {
-            if (errorDescriptions[i] !== nextWord) {
-                var currWord = errorDescriptions[i];
+        for (var i = index; i <= errorDescription.length - 1;  i++) {
+            if (errorDescription[i] !== nextWord) {
+                var currWord = errorDescription[i];
 
-                // strip leading # if present
-                if (currWord.charAt(0) === '#' || errorDescriptions[i-1] === '(id') {
+                // select just numeric part of id
+                if (currWord.charAt(0) === '#' || errorDescription[i-1] === '(id') { // NOTE: hacky way of selecting the token before
                     currWord = currWord.replace(/\D/g,'');
 
                     // get the entity type of the id
-                    var lastWord = errorDescriptions[i-1];
-                    var secondLastWord = errorDescriptions[i-2];
+                    var lastWord = errorDescription[i-1];
+                    var secondLastWord = errorDescription[i-2];
                     var base;
                     if (lastWord) { base = getEntityBase(lastWord) || getEntityBase(secondLastWord); }
                     if (!base) {
@@ -120,9 +120,13 @@ export function parseErrorDescriptions(entity) {
                     currWord = t('QA.keepRight.entities.' + currWord);
                 }
 
+                // add phrase (or single word) to variable list
                 parsedPhrase += currWord;
             }
-            // add phrase (or single word) to variable list
+            // if any variables have html, escape them
+            if (html_re.test(parsedPhrase)) {
+                parsedPhrase = '\\' +  parsedPhrase + '\\';
+            }
             parsedDescriptions.push(parsedPhrase);
             break;
         }