Most states use the off centered style where the exit tab is on the right half of the sign for right exits such as my example from I-40 in New Mexico and on the left for left half of the sign exits such as my example from I-81 in Virginia. This style is the MUTCD standard.
As Glutinous Rice mentioned, as states with their own supplements change the standards, the signs get updated with the new design. Replacing signs is pretty common in the United States because the signs usually have a 10 year life span before they will need replaced. In Glutinous Rice's examples, you can see that the old signs that were replaced had signs of damage, reduced legibility, and rust. The state DOTs usually keep an eye on the age of the signs to decide when and if to replace them. You can also see that the designs of the signs were changed in order to meet the standards that are spelled out in the newer versions of the MUTCD and the Oregon state supplement.
Also, there are a lot of exceptions when it comes to exit tabs, as not all of them are the same. This could be for a number of reasons:
- The sign is older, and therefore it was made off of old standards.
- There was something that was being dealt with on a case-by-case basis, and therefore the sign is unique from the others.
- The sign was built wrong by accident, ignoring the state supplement and going for the MUTCD standard.
An example of this is
here. At this intersection, they used many different exit tab styles on all of the different approaches of the junction. If you guys want to make the signs as realistic as physically possible, you can make each and every sign different from one another based off of the real-life version of that specific sign, but that would be super tedious, and it would take a long time. You could just make it so that ATS is the prefect world where the sign engineers followed the state supplements and all the signs were replaced in the last 5 or so years.
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I'll try to get a list going of all of the exit tab designs that are from a state supplement. It will take some time to finish though. I'll start with California and Washington because they are the two states that really stick out from the crowd.
California:
At some point, SCS should go back to California to correct this.
natvander might do it.
Washington: