Cat’s Eyes - a purrfect design!
Travelling up to Aberdeen in the night, taking some smaller unlit roads, I was amazed how well the Cat’s Eyes worked. They were really bright, guiding the traveller safely through the night. And they are easy to maintain, don’t consume any energy during their operation phase and don’t blind cars coming from the other direction.
The cat's eye is a retroreflective safety device used in road marking. When the tram-lines were removed in a part of Halifax, West Yorkshire, in 1933 Percy Shaw of Boothtown realized that he has used the polished metal stripes as an orientation while travelling in the night. He used a reflective lens, which was invented by Richard Hollins Murray in 1929. He worked on his invention, also inspired by the reflecting eyes of cats, until he patented it in 1934. One year later he founded Reflecting Roadstuds Limited in Halifax to manufacture his Catseyes.
In 2006, Catseye was voted one of Britain's top 10 design icons in the Great British Design Quest organised by the BBC and the Design Museum.
He reflective lens is also used in various other application, f.e. on bike wheels.
It is a great design, a simple and efficient solution to a clear problem.
