Matthew J.X. Malady at the New Republic writes about the decline of the signature thanks to the electronic signature pads.
In his book, Prank the Monkey, humorist John Hargrave recounts a wonderfully hilarious experiment he conducted that is, importantly, quite capable of being repeated on a massive scale. Hargrave set out to test a hypothesis that clerks accepting credit card signatures almost never pay attention to the receipts we sign. First he adorned his name with rainbows and peace signs on a receipt. Another time, he scribbled a dark black mess that appeared as though he was trying to cover up a signature so that people wouldn’t be able to tell who signed. Both made the cut, no questions asked. He did a grid of 28 rectangles on the signature line one time. No problem. Same goes for the instance when he signed his name as a stick figure accompanied by some grass and a flower. Hargrave signed receipts in hieroglyphics, wrote “Mariah Carey,” and signed in all caps as “BEETHOVEN.” Even when he wrote, “I stole this card” on a signature line, no one called him on it, and the transaction went through.
Apt. 11d 
I have a friend who signs her credit cards “please ask for ID”, and she says that it actually happens once or twice a year.
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Not really on topic, but now that I know everyone is drugged out of their gourd, Canadian politics makes so much more sense.
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My impression was always that the signature was for the card owner, not the card company- that it might be evidence if you claimed you didn’t make a purchase. They certainly don’t want to decline purchases if they can avoid it!
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My husband writes, “Show ID” and I would say 99% of the time when he makes a purchase of a physical object (tv, clothing, books, etc.) the clerk asks for ID. In contrast, at restaurants and bars this occurs rarely.
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