According to the MUTCD, fluorescent yellow-green may now be used for pedestrian warning sign, school zone warning sign, and bicycle lane warning sign applications. However, concerns were raised by some researchers, traffic engineers, practitioners, and administrators, that the new fluorescent yellow-green signs will lose their "eye-catching" quality, after drivers get used to seeing those bright signs. For some reason, this novelty effect is widely accepted as a fact, without quantitative basis. The present field study was conducted to determine if in fact such a novelty effect is found in the looking behaviour of motorists in school zones equipped with fluorescent yellow-green school zone signs. Daytime eye movement data for nine subjects was analysed. Five of the subjects had a prior exposure of five years or more to fluorescent yellow-green school zone signs (familiar group) while the remaining four subjects had an exposure of less than six months (unfamiliar group). The normalised eye movement data that was obtained from approaches to 22 fluorescent yellow-green school zone signs and 13 normal yellow school zone signs indicates that the novelty effect feared by many does not seem to exist for fluorescent yellow-green school zone signs. In fact, a learning effect was found, in that familiar drivers made more fixations to the fluorescent signs than did the unfamiliar drivers. Based on the data presented in this paper, it is concluded that fluorescent yellow-green school zone signs are superior to their normal colour counterparts in terms of driver looking behaviour. This does not mean that drivers would necessarily exhibit an improvement in stopping or yielding to pedestrians. Additional educational and public awareness efforts may be needed to ensure that drivers then use this superior information so as to increase school zone safety. For the covering abstract see ITRD E113725 (C 22328 CD-ROM).
Abstract