Design Analysis #1 - Caution Signs

I started to title this design rant number one, but I promise to never rant about bad design without offering an alternative or at least exploring what's wrong with it.  And I'm numbering them because I know it'll be a frequent topic.

This is something that has bugged me for the entire six years I've been at Travelocity.  As you're walking in from the garage, you have to cross a road.  It's really more of a divided driveway as its only purpose is for drop off.  Because of this, at most times of day, traffic is very sparse.  You could easily walk into the office a dozen times in a row without seeing a car. 

Lest the sense of complacency this leads to causes an unwary pedestrian to be run over by a colleague's car pool, the company has put up caution signs to remind you that you're crossing a road, or rather two one-way roads since it's divided.  Here they are.

(One was in the shade and one in the sun when I photographed them.  They are really basically the same.)

So what bugs me?  They just have never felt right.  And I finally spent the time to think about why.  I think it boils down to the fact that we read left to right.  The left sign is particularly problematic.  The first thing you see is the arrow.  The fact that it's pointing left draws your eye from right to left.  But then you want to read the sign, so your eyes jump back to the right.  You read the message, and again look to the left as it says.  So eyes going everywhere.

The right isn't quite as bad.  But the tendency is still to follow the arrow to the right, then jump back and actually read the message.

I think the first solution is to put the arrow after the message.  Read first, then follow arrow to follow directions, and you never have to look back at the sign.  The arrow being first makes you jump all over the place.  With the right sign this works beautifully.  You track left to right to read the message, and just keep following the arrow in the same direction.

Left is, like I said, more problematic.  Moving the arrow means you track left to right to read, then jump back to the left to follow the arrow.  Not much of a way around a jump at some point.

I also wondered if maybe a big arrow with the words inside might be better.  This would eliminate the left to right issue of processing text and arrow sequentially.  If I have time later I'll draw it up and put it here. 

Is the sign as is effective?  Yes, it's fine.  It just bugs me because it doesn't feel right and could be better.  But I guarantee you nobody usability tested this sucker and did eye tracking.  The geek in me would love to do it.