"Bald Eagle" <cre### [at] netscapenet> wrote:

>
> The lettering on road surfaces is a vertically stretched typeface, to compensate
> for the somewhat extreme viewing angle from the driver's seat.
>
Funny thing about such road-painted signs:

Take this for instance...

         STOP
          ON
         RED

That's how it looks from the driver's location (or better yet, from a bird's eye
view above the driver.) And that's how we're expected to read it.

But on a dark rainy night, those big stretched-out words appear differently. The
first word *I* see in the headlights is... RED.
Then ON.
Then STOP.

Depending on the actual message, that can be... confusing!  So while I'm
attempting to make sense of it-- thinking, "red on stop? what does *that
mean*?"-- I mistakenly go through the read light, get broad-sided by a large
truck, then wake up in hospital months later-- my very first thought being,
"Hey, did I read that message the right way??"  :-P

The logic of civil engineering sometimes escapes me...

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