A few details here: It's not sans-serif vs. serif that makes short texts more legible: it's the x-height of the letterforms that tend to make sans-serifs more

A few details here: It's not sans-serif vs. serif that makes short texts more legible: it's the x-height of the letterforms that tend to make sans-serifs more legible. Automotive signage typefaces are usually designed with larger-than-normal x-heights, which has the effect of increasing the legibility of a typeface from a distance without increasing the font size (which is why, for example, Arial looks HUGE in Word at 12 pt whereas Times New Roman looks perfectly acceptable). There could certainly be a serif typeface used for shorter texts. A good example would be TheSerif from the FF Thesis collection. Another issue with serif fonts on screens that you touched on: most traditional serif fonts were simply not designed to be viewed on a screen. However, a good counterexample would be Georgia, a serif font designed by Matthew Carter that was made specifically for the screen and used by a large number of websites. One last thing: a reason why serifs are often thought to be more legible in large bodies of text is due to designers being careless about leading. With sans-serif fonts, you generally need to let the leading out a bit in comparison to serif fonts. On the author's site, for example, having the font so big and the leading so small tended to make me lose my position while reading (remember that without serifs to 'anchor' your eye, you're basically limiting your recognizable shapes to lines and circles).