These have always confused me a little bit. For instance, “Yield to pedestrians” written in highway engineer style is “Pedestrians to yield.” Who is yielding to whom? What do you think about backward writing? [ Cartoon by xkcd. Hat tip Greater Greater Washington. ]
Founder and Editor at Broken Sidewalk
Branden founded Broken Sidewalk in 2008 while practicing architecture in Louisville. He continued the site for seven years while living in New York City, returning to Louisville in 2016. Branden is a graduate of the College of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, and has covered architecture, design, and urbanism for The Architect's Newspaper, Designers & Books, Inhabitat, and the American Institute of Architects.
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It has to be written backwards because of our approach. Consider, if there are cars in front of us, if it weren’t written backward, it would be impossible to read the first word 100-feet ahead. Also, if we had to throw our sight so far ahead to read the first word, we’d be racing against the speed of our cars to see the last word. A better solution is to put the sign on a vertical plane where it can be studied more traditionally-sequentially, but these kind are already like zucchini in summertime.