These glowing road safety devices have steered drivers in the right direction for decades
When travelling along roads at night, drivers rely on well-lit paths and signage to direct them safely along dark routes. Road signs have lights to illuminate their lettering, while between lanes, long strings of small studs inform the positioning of each vehicle. Just as any cat caught in the headlights reveals two piercingly bright eyes, these road studs shine brighter the closer you drive towards them, reflecting the light from car headlights back to the vehicle.
Cat’s eyes were first produced by English inventor Percy Shaw in 1934. When Shaw was driving along a particularly dangerous section of road on a foggy night a year prior, he was unable to see where the road ended and the steep hills began. He usually used the reflection of his headlights off the tram tracks in the road to guide him, but on this misty night he realised the need for clearer road markings. None of the roadside objects reflected much light back to him, other than the eyes of a passing cat. This striking return of light led Shaw to design an unpowered device that
Did you know?
99 per cent of UK roads have cat’s eyes installed
could achieve this same level of brightness along all stretches of a road and make driving after dark much safer.
Today, cat’s eyes are a staple of road design, preventing many accidents as a result of poor visibility. They are widely used in countries around the world and don’t depend on electricity to work – just the light already produced by your vehicle. There are around 500 million cat’s eyes lining roads in the UK alone.
Though the simple-yet-effective reflective design has stood the test of time, a modern spin on cat’s eyes sees the technology incorporating small solar panels to emit light constantly through each night. This allows them to shine brightly at a distance as well as at close range so drivers can view twists and turns more clearly from afar.
SELF-CLEANING INSTALLATION
For the best reflection and clear road marking, cat’s eyes need to be clean in order to reflect a car’s headlights. The central glass reflecting component of a cat’s eye is first placed into a rubber housing. When positioned in the housing, cat’s eyes are slightly elevated from the road surface level. This makes them stand out and enables light from headlights to better reach their surface. The rubber housing is placed into a hard aluminium casing before it’s placed onto the road. Much of t
