If traffic is so heavy, how much danger is there that a stop sign will suddenly sneak up on you?
I never realized you were supposed to read them from the bottom up. And I’ve seen versions of all the signs mentioned in this thread (that aren’t local specific) written top-bottom.
I wonder if the reason they work better isn’t because people read the bottom before the top, but because they are written oddly. They parse as being oddly written, so it catches your attention. If so, then it would be likely that, as they become more popular, the advantage would be lost.
I’m personally a bigger fan of pictures and obvious symbols.
True, but the information may be relevant for other warnings. This feature (that you still see the leading word first when traffic obscures the rest) may be as much of the rationale as studies like the one I mentioned earlier. I DID find it surprising that that study wound up with the results it did - that the backwards presentation was more quickly perceived when messages were painted directly on the roadway rather than overhead.