Road signs have been around for thousands of years. From the very first primitive path cut through the forest by caveman, man has been marking roads to simplify navigation and find his way. During the great days of the Roman Empire, columns made of stone were put up to show the distance from that point on the road to the city of Rome. These columns were some of the first road signs used that actually showed how far until the destination, in this case Rome. During the Middle Ages, the time of King Arthur, Merlin, and the Knights of the Round Table, road signs were used at intersections of roads. These were used for more than one direction, pointing to towns or cities along more than one road at the intersection.
Up until the automobile was created in the late eighteen hundreds, traffic signs were not considered very important to most. Once the car was invented it became important for roads and towns to be marked, allowing travelers to find their way. In the year 1908, there was an important meeting in the city of Rome that discussed regulating traffic signs. This meeting was called the International Road Congress, and road signs were just one of the things that were discussed here.
In the beginning of the nineteenth century, road signs were made from wood and used the dull lead based paint that was available then. With the advancement of newer technology, metal became available in place of wood, creating signs that were more durable. The paint used on the road signs was also changed, first to a paint with no lead, and then to reflective paint that greatly increases night time visibility.
Currently, road markers include several different mediums. There are the usual metal and paint signs, that say things like stop, yield, lane closes, the speed limit, and more. But in the modern world there are also high tech signs, like road beacon systems and signs that talk. Road beacon systems use electronic sign boards to post information that changes, such as construction progress or accident ahead. These road signs make it very easy to disperse the latest information on a board visible to all motorists.
There is a lot of uniformity in traffic signs the world over. The shape and color of many can be translated no matter what country you are in or what language the writing is in. Stop signs, for instance, have the same pentagon shape and red color in almost every country in the world, making it recognizable even to foreigners in every country. Some road markers simply identify the road, route, or highway you are driving on, and these signs are responsible for the ease in navigation most motorists have in finding their way from point A to point B. Road signs have a long history that dates back millennium, and these have been improved over the years and have evolved into the complex range of road signs that are available on modern roads.
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