Durham, N.C. — STARTING this week, a familiar face will begin to disappear from America’s roadside signs. It's not particularly noticeable — certainly not as memorable as the goateed Colonel Sanders or smiling Big Boy or pigtailed Wendy pushing their fried chicken, hamburgers and French fries. Rather, it is a typeface named Clearview, which has graced many of our highway signs and directed us to our destinations since 2004, when it was granted interim approval by the Federal Highway Administration.

Clearview was intended as a big step forward in legibility over the national standard alphabet typefaces that have long dominated highway signs. But late last month the highway agency quietly announced in the Federal Register that henceforth only older typefaces specified in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices may be used. The 30-day waiting period required after such announcements ended Wednesday.

The typical traveler may not pay much attention to highway-sign typefaces, but then that’s part of the point — to convey information clearly without distracting or confusing the driver. By the early 2000s, it was obvious that the set of older typefaces, commonly referred to as Highway Gothic and dating from the mid-20th century, before the creation of the Interstate highway system, were hard for some drivers to read, especially older drivers with weakening vision. Today, there are almost 100 million American drivers over age 50. These constitute about 45 percent of all licensed drivers, and those over 85 continue to be the nation’s fastest-growing cohort.

As one of those drivers between 50 and 85, I can attest to the fact that declining eyesight is one of the greatest frustrations of growing old. Years ago I had to pull off to the side of the road and ask my son to take over driving because I was experiencing double vision. That problem was corrected by reattaching a detached retina. Some years later, I stopped driving at night because I saw a halo around lights. Cataract surgery fixed that.