If you've traveled through Pennsylvania recently, you may have noticed some welcome relief in the form of more readable road signs.
This new typeface, developed by researchers at Pennsylvania State University, is called (appropriately enough) Clearview. The Federal Highway Administration has approved the use of Clearview for signs on all public streets, highways and byways.
New signs bearing Clearview, instead of the familiar Highway Gothic, already appear on Routes 322 and 80 in Pennsylvania and on highways throughout Texas.
The new Clearview typeface offers a 20 percent improvement in legibility and recognition.
How is that possible? Well, researchers say that Clearview uses special spacing based on how a viewer reads from an extended distance. The signs also eliminate nighttime overglow or halo-ing. Overglow occurs when a truck's headlights shine directly on a sign in which the letters are made of highly reflective material. The letters become, momentarily, so bright that they lose their familiar shape and instead look like blobs.
Clearview letters are designed with more interior space, so when halo-ing occurs, letters like e, g and a don't fill up and become unreadable.
"Inadequate signing can be a contributing factor in roadway crashes," says Philip Garvey, research associate at Penn State's Pennsylvania Transportation Institute. "Although Clearview was intended to help older drivers, our studies show that the appreciable gain in reaction time provided by the new typeface will be achieved by drivers regardless of age."
