What are road signs?
The first modern road signs were designed for riders of bicycles in the 1870s and 1880s. The current British road signage system was created by a pair of London designers named Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert. It was launched on January 1st, 1965, and now it’s used on all British roads!
What different road signs are there?
There are hundreds of different roads signs in the UK, and they all fall into these three main types:
- Circular signs which give orders (usually a direction or speed limit)
- Triangular signs which give warnings (such as sharp bends or traffic ahead)
- Rectangular signs which provide information (e.g., the direction of tourist attractions)
Here are some examples of each type of road sign:
Circular
Triangular
Rectangular
Facts about road signs for children
- Road signs use both uppercase and lowercase letters to help people recognize words faster
- Kinneir and Calvert (the designer of UK road signs) used a combination of coordinating letters, colors, shapes, and symbols to create a system of characters that is easy to understand
- British road signs inspired many modern road signs across the world
- The girl in the Children Crossing sign is based on an image of Margaret Calvert as a child
- Road signs are usually blue, red, green, brown, or white
