
The feds are killing off Clearview, the new highway sign font - Tomte
http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/4/10919686/clearview-highway-font-fhwa-highway-gothic
======
vonklaus
_It turns out that all that research suggesting the new font might be more
legible was more due to the fact that older, worn signs were being replaced
with nice, fresh, clean signs which were, naturally, more legible._

That's not super correct, I don't think. They researched this and documented
it quite well[1], it also seems to be independently researched in this book I
couldn't imagine anyone ever read[2] about traffic fonts. Also, that source[2]
cites like 3 studies of independent people researching this topic over like a
6 year period.

It also seems that this report 'proving' errors in the testing methodology is
not released yet. So, like what the fuck? These dudes(they were all men) spend
some time researching various methodologies for developing roadway font, which
is probably extremely dull, and then they incorporate their results into a
font sepcifically for roadways and the government says it is not effective?

That's cool, the font is like 175 - 800 bucks per jurisdiction, just say you
don't want to pay. I mean, this is a massive taxpayer expense probably on par
with the rusting helicopters and power plant that can't function we built in
Iraq(saw that shit on Vice). Also, publicly call these guys morons and don't
release the results. Classy.

[1][http://clearviewhwy.com/ResearchAndDesign/_articles/TRB_Pape...](http://clearviewhwy.com/ResearchAndDesign/_articles/TRB_Paper.pdf)
[2][https://books.google.com/books?id=iFCZ53i5XXgC&pg=PA126&hl=e...](https://books.google.com/books?id=iFCZ53i5XXgC&pg=PA126&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false)

~~~
jacobolus
I agree, the FHWA’s claims are highly suspect.

They should release their supposed evidence, or come clean about their real
reasoning. I’m also guessing the price is the main issue. But that seems
pretty ridiculous; it’s a relative pittance compared to the overall cost of
signage. That or someone in charge really prefers the older typeface.

~~~
Aloha
I dont - I can see some credence to the claims for dark on light signs - of
course I'm enough of a road geek to have a preference over which flavor of
Highway Gothic I prefer (Series E, Modified).

I suspect while there may be some improvement with clearview, its not enough
of one to justify the cost differential.

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robinhouston
The original source has slightly more information:
[https://www.transportation.gov/fastlane/fonts-and-highway-
sa...](https://www.transportation.gov/fastlane/fonts-and-highway-safety)

“After more than a decade of analysis, we learned that retro-reflective sign
sheeting materials that direct a vehicle’s headlamp beams back to the observer
were the primary determining factor in improved nighttime visibility and
legibility.”

~~~
dr_zoidberg
I love when decades of research give the completely logical result.

------
vpribish
It seems they found it was actually less legible than the old ones -
especially in the inverted color scheme some signs use.

The previous tests were brand new Clearview signs beating old-and-faded
classic signs -- which seems like an unbelievably embarrassing mistake.

~~~
ergothus
Perhaps I'm more forgiving, but it seems easy for someone just thinking "It
seems more clear to me, but how do I know for sure? Oh! I'll put them up on a
road and see if the accident rates change!".

Only when someone points out to me that the signs they are replacing are
probably not new would it become "obvious". (In fact, while I read my first
article on this, my internal thought was 'so why isn't this better if it
tested so well?', then they mentioned the old signs, and my thought was 'oh,
right, that makes sense'.

So embarrassing mistake? No doubt. Unbelievably embarrassing mistake? No way,
not with the sadly believable mistakes I've made in the past.

~~~
kriro
Disagree. Very embarrassing mistake. Also very embarrassing that this wasn't
caught by whoever signed off on replacing signs (but not surprising, I doubt
those studies are read in detail often and people probably only browse the
intro and conclusions).

Basically a "you failed science 101" level of embarrassment mistake in my
estimation. Testing two brand new signs with the different fonts should be a
fairly obvious first idea. The hard/interesting part is taking into account
learning effects for the previous font. There's a pretty interesting research
question in how you'd age signs in there as well (as you want to know if the
gains are positive over the entire lifetime of the sign) and some interesting
ethics questions about field testing.

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david-given
The UK (and some other countries) mostly use a font called Transport:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_(typeface)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_\(typeface\))

I've always found it supremely clear and much less fussy than the US highway
font, although I bet that's because I grew up with it. (There's something
about the spacing of the letters on US signs that looks really odd to me,
which I can't quite put my finger on.)

I'm sure they'd let the US use it if you asked nicely...

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Theodores
Recently there was a 'Ask HN: Ideas for Passive Income'. To add to the list -
design a font.

To me the idea that the highways agencies and other departments choose to use
paid for fonts is a bit silly. It is like choosing to pay for air and then
insisting that anyone you talk to also pays for air (prosecuting them if they
do not). This seems culturally wrong for the U.S. government where things like
NASA images or NOAA weather data is free to use.

------
oliv__
Good. Highway Gothic is way more legible anyways. Plus it has that classic US
feeling to it.

Clearview, on top of being harder to spell out, had lost all the personality
Highway Gothic had, imo.

------
bgrainger
Discussed recently:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10985709](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10985709)

------
kriro
Pretty sorry execution of the usability tests I'd say. Isn't quality of the
sign one of the most obvious factors to consider? I wonder if they only tested
in perfect weather conditions, too.

I guess I get a decent example for confounding variables for our intro
material out of this so there's that.

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sandstrom
With clever cars, road sign legibility won't be an issue for much longer :)

------
venning
> _It turns out that all that research suggesting the new font might be more
> legible was more due to the fact that older, worn signs were being replaced
> with nice, fresh, clean signs which were, naturally, more legible._

It turns out that all those blog posts suggesting the rewrite might be more
performant was more due to the fact that older, spaghetti code was being
replaced with nice, fresh, clean code which was, naturally, better structured.

~~~
zachsnow
So, refactoring is a good idea?

~~~
venning
I guess, but not really my point. All the projects that go through massive
rewrites to port into another language always seem to attribute the gains they
inevitably find to the new language and not to the fact that they completely
restructured the code in full view of what a completed version already looked
like. Very much a pilot sytem result [1].

I know there are plenty of rewritten projects that truly benefited from a
language better fitted to the domain, but rewriting itself will usually
produce better code. The argument against refactoring would be that the better
code isn't often worth it when you're not changing languages.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-
Month#The_p...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-
Month#The_pilot_system)

 _Edit_ : I submitted accidentally.

~~~
derefr
I could swear there was a post just in the last month on HN that with a title
of something like "Massive gains from rewriting our C++ project in... C++"

