The Stop Sign Wasn’t Always Red. Yellow signs were used before there was a way produce a reflective material in red that would last. We have the Mississippi Valley Association of State Highway Departments to thank for the stop sign’s iconic shape. In 1923, the association developed an influential set of recommendations about street-sign shapes whose impact is still felt today. The recommendations were based on a simple, albeit not exactly intuitive, idea: the more sides a sign has, the higher the danger level it invokes. [more inside]
posted by Obscure Reference on Dec 13, 2011 - 109 comments

These images caused a great debate among my antipodean circle in London whether they are real or have been photoshopped. As far as we can gather it does exist. But it is surreal - and only in the UK surely would something like this be real.
posted by Samuel Farrow on Sep 8, 2004 - 85 comments

Conjestion charging hits london £5 to take a car into the central zone (pdf) between 7am and 6.30pm Mon - Fri. It's all the work of controversial mayor "Red" Ken Livingstone Opinion is split: for and against. A small majority of Londoners seem in favour of it - traffic in London now is as slow as the days of the horse and cart! Day one seems quiet, though it is the school holidays! Is this the answer?
posted by brettski on Feb 17, 2003 - 39 comments

Like some people, I'm obsessed with traffic. I was very happy to hear that Toyota is developing chips to drive smart cars, since groups of people in cars can't seem to drive very well on their own. I've studied traffic for years (living in LA means lots of "time in the lab") and have actually tried no-stopping experiments and observed merging behavior. People seem to use their brakes too much, or over-react to people ahead tapping their brakes. I can't wait until the day traffic flow can be controlled by computer, LA might be livable again. Just to prove to others that this is in fact a thinly-veiled simpsons newsgroup, Homer and Bart benefited from similar driving-assistance technology in episode #AABF13.
posted by mathowie on Feb 9, 2000 - 2 comments