STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — The sign for Tony's Auto Insurance came down in November, just three months after it was put up.
Of course, Tony didn't care. That's because there was no business. In fact, there was no Tony.
Tony's Auto Insurance was one of a handful of business names that Penn State University researchers made up to study how drivers respond to business signs.
The study was commissioned by the U.S. Sign Council, an industry trade group that approached the university's Pennsylvania Transportation Institute complaining of stricter design regulations from planning and zoning boards.
"They felt that (signs) were getting so small now that they might be dangerous from a traffic safety standpoint," Martin Pietrucha, a researcher at the university's transportation institute said.
After inventing businesses, researchers recruited residents to participate in a scavenger hunt. Subjects were told, for example, to look for a sandwich shop on a certain street. When they spotted a sign for the shop, they would report to the researchers, who would then direct them to the next sign.
Not all of the data has been analyzed yet, but one researcher said one thing stood out — signs flush against a building and parallel to the roadway were much harder to spot.