Street signs showing action more effective, study shows


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PROVO — Thirty-seven pedestrians died crossing Utah roads in 2014, according to the Utah Department of Transportation. A professor at BYU just finished a study showing a simple solution could save lives.

At Ryan Elder's office on the BYU campus, he's more used to seeing student traffic than vehicle traffic. He has a PhD in marketing and knows the power of a picture.

“What we found with logo design is if you make it look like it was moving, people would keep looking back at it,” said Elder.

He wanted to know if the same would happen with signs people see every day.

“In the U.S. (traffic signs) have remained pretty stagnant probably for the past 30 years,” he said.

He believes the solution is to make the images appear more active.

“You can’t really make them move, but if you can tweak a small change with how the icon looks, it can have a really big impact,” he said.

Photo: Ray Boone/KSL-TV
Photo: Ray Boone/KSL-TV

He tested his theory using an eye tracking study that measures where people look during a simulated driving experience. He replaced the street signs with icons showing more movement.

“People kept looking back at the sign because they expected the icon to move,” he said. “Their eyes darted back and forth meaning they were in this heightened sense of vigilance,” he said.

He believes this could add precious time for drivers behind the wheel.

“We’re talking about 50 milliseconds,” he said. “You think that’s not very much at all, but that the difference of about 4.4 feet if you’re going 60 miles per hour."

He hopes his research of making signs more active will also spur action, especially among local leaders.

“These little changes, if you can make them and they can save even one life, that’s worth it to somebody,” he said.

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