There’s a problem with road signs.  As they’re currently done, road signs feature shiny letters on a metal background, with every word spelled out in ALL-SCREAMING CAPS LOCK block letters.  Are they fairly visible, even at night?  Yeah, they are.  However, if you’re the Federal Highway Administration, fairly visible isn’t visible enough.  According to new federal regulations, road signs have to switch from block capital letters to a mix of capital and lowercase letters by 2015 in an effort to improve night visibility.  They are also going to have to improve the reflectiveness of the letters to assist night drivers with sign reading.

“As drivers get older, we want to make sure they’re able to read the signs,” says FHWA administrator Victor Mendez.  “Research shows that older drivers are better able to read signs when they’re written in both capital and small letters.  It’s really driven by safety.”

Increasing visibility is a great idea, honestly.  I’m not old and I have fairly good eyesight, but even I have difficulty reading those road signs at night, especially at highway speeds.  I can understand why local governments hate the added expense during tough economic times, but these are changes they should have been doing all along as older signs wore out or spelling errors were discovered, especially if they knew this law was on the books.

Tags: road signs, all-caps road signs, road signs soon to be changed, modified road signs, no more all caps road signs, road sign fonts changed for better visibility, Federal Highway Administration, FHWA, Victor Mendez, road sign changes, visibility

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