50 Fun Facts About Road Safety

David Prowse, Britain's Green Cross Code Man who taught children to cross roads, played which Star Wars character?

Darth Vader was Prowse inside the suit, with another actor's voice dubbed over his West Country accent. Prowse played the Green Cross Man in road safety adverts from 1975 to 1990 and was made an MBE for it in 2000.

Early trials of the high-mounted third brake light, which halved rear-end collisions, mainly used which vehicles?

Taxicabs fitted with the extra lamp were hit from behind about half as often as those without. The United States and Canada went on to require it on every new car from the 1986 model year.

Whose fatal 1935 motorcycle crash in Dorset led neurosurgeon Hugh Cairns to study crash helmets for riders?

Lawrence of Arabia, the soldier and writer T. E. Lawrence, was thrown over the handlebars while swerving around two boys. Cairns, one of his doctors, then spent years proving that helmets saved dispatch riders.

Nobel physicist Arthur Compton designed which traffic-calming device in 1953 to slow cars passing his university?

Speed bumps, which Compton called traffic control bumps, were his answer to motorists racing past Brookings Hall at Washington University in St. Louis, where he was chancellor.

Which Hollywood star filmed a safe-driving interview with actor Gig Young shortly before dying in a 1955 Porsche crash?

James Dean shot the spot in a cowboy outfit during a break from filming Giant, toying with a lasso while he told viewers to drive carefully. He was killed on a California road that September.

Walter Arnold of Kent became the first driver convicted of speeding, in 1896, for travelling at about what speed?

8 mph was four times the limit that applied where Arnold was caught, and it cost him a fine of one shilling plus costs.

The evasive swerve test that famously tipped over a brand-new small car in 1997 is nicknamed after which animal?

The moose test imitates dodging an animal that steps into the road. A motoring magazine rolled the new car at 37 mph, while an elderly Trabant got through the same course unharmed.

The United States imposed a national 55 mph speed limit in 1974 mainly in response to what?

An oil crisis, set off by the 1973 embargo, made saving fuel the aim. Road deaths fell as well, which helped keep the limit on the books until 1995.

Mary Anderson patented which car safety device in 1903, reportedly inspired by a New York streetcar driver in the snow?

Windshield wipers began as her rubber blade on an arm, worked by a lever from inside. Buyers said it had no commercial value, and her patent expired in 1920 before anyone mass-produced it.

The far-hand way of opening a car door, which turns drivers to spot passing cyclists, is named after which country?

The Netherlands gave its name to the Dutch Reach, a habit known there since at least 1961. Reaching across with the far hand swivels the shoulders, so the driver looks back before the door opens.

Tufty Fluffytail, who has taught British children to cross roads safely since 1953, is which kind of animal?

A red squirrel, Tufty fronted a club for under-fives that grew to nearly 25,000 branches, with about two million children signed up by the early 1970s.

Britain's Pegasus crossings carry a second push button two metres off the ground for which road users?

Horse riders can press the high button without dismounting, and the usual green and red men on the signal are swapped for horse symbols. The name borrows the winged steed of Greek myth.

Jaywalking, a word that spread across America in the 1910s, takes its 'jay' from old slang for what kind of person?

A country rube, or greenhorn, was a 'jay', and a jay-driver was one who strayed onto the wrong side of the road. By 1909 newspapers had turned the insult on pedestrians.

Before designing Volvo's three-point belt, Nils Bohlin developed which devices for Saab's fighter jets?

Ejection seats were Bohlin's work at Saab from 1942, and throwing pilots clear of stricken jets taught him how a body copes with violent forces. He needed only about a year to perfect the car belt.

A 1939 conference organised by educator Frank Cyr chose the standard colour for which American vehicles?

School buses got the yellow-orange shade because black lettering on it was the easiest to read in the half-light of early morning, and it stood out from a distance.

Shibuya Crossing, the world's busiest scramble where all traffic halts so walkers cross diagonally, is in which city?

Tokyo gave the junction its scramble signals in 1973, and as many as 3,000 people now pour across on a single green light.

Which English town is known for its 1972 Magic Roundabout, a junction of five mini-roundabouts arranged in a circle?

Swindon's junction has been voted one of Britain's scariest, yet its safety record is excellent: traffic crawls through too slowly for a collision to do serious damage.

Small medals of which patron of travellers are often placed in cars in the hope of a safe journey?

Saint Christopher owes the role to the legend that he spent his life carrying travellers across a dangerous river, on one crossing bearing the Christ child on his shoulders.

The cliff-edge Yungas Road, nicknamed Death Road and often called the world's most dangerous, is in which country?

Bolivia makes this the one road in the country where traffic keeps left, so the driver on the outside can watch the wheels against the drop. A safer bypass was finished in 2006.

Car head restraints, first patented in 1921, are positioned mainly to prevent which injury in a rear-end collision?

Whiplash happens when the head snaps back over the top of the seat. A Californian patented a car headrest as early as 1921, decades before the first countries made them compulsory in the late 1960s.

Béla Barényi, who patented the crumple zone that lets a car's ends fold in a crash, worked for which carmaker?

Mercedes built his idea into its saloons: a rigid passenger cell between a front and rear that give way and soak up the blow. Barényi patented the developed version in 1952.

Anti-lock brakes, which stop a car's wheels locking in an emergency stop, were first developed for which vehicles?

Aircraft needed the help first, because holding the brakes right on the edge of a skid is nearly impossible on a landing run. French pioneer Gabriel Voisin was trying out the idea as early as 1920.

A dropped laboratory flask that cracked without scattering led French chemist Édouard Bénédictus to invent what?

Safety glass of the laminated kind came from that flask, which was coated inside with cellulose nitrate. Bénédictus filed his patent in 1909, after hearing of a car crash in which flying glass badly hurt two women.

Ray Harroun won which inaugural 1911 race using a rear-view mirror in place of the riding mechanic the rules expected?

The Indianapolis 500 rules called for a mechanic on board to watch the traffic behind, and Harroun drove alone. His mirror caused a row, but in the end officials allowed it.

Florence Lawrence, who devised an early signalling arm to show which way a car would turn, was famous as what?

A film actress often called the first movie star, Lawrence also came up with a mechanical brake signal. She patented neither idea, and so never earned credit or money from them.

In 2009, which Pacific nation switched from driving on the right to the left so it could import cheaper cars?

Samoa was the first territory in almost 30 years to change sides, and it did so over loud protests: 14,000 of its 18,000 vehicles had been built for the other side of the road.

Which country's parliament adopted Vision Zero in 1997, the policy that no road death or serious injury is acceptable?

Sweden starts from the idea that people will always make mistakes, so its roads are built with safety put ahead of speed or convenience. Cities around the world have since copied the policy.

Maurice Gatsonides built the first Gatso speed camera to improve his own performance in which sport?

Rallying was his trade, and the device was meant to measure how fast he took corners so that he could drive them better. Only later was a company formed to sell it to police forces.

Candace Lightner founded which American campaign group in 1980 after an intoxicated motorist killed her daughter Cari?

MADD, short for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, grew out of her fury that the man who hit Cari had recently been arrested for another hit-and-run while drunk. Lightner left the group in 1985.

The Harvard Alcohol Project persuaded 1980s TV shows such as Cheers to promote which Scandinavian road safety idea?

Designated drivers had been a Scandinavian habit since the 1920s. From 1988 the Harvard campaign got networks and studios to work the idea into scripts and public service announcements.

Before the Breathalyzer, American police tested motorists with which 1930s balloon device invented by Rolla Harger?

The Drunkometer caught a motorist's breath in a balloon inside the machine, then pumped it through a potassium permanganate solution. Harger, an Indiana medical professor, developed it in 1931.

Which British transport minister brought in roadside breath tests in 1967 and made seat belts compulsory in new cars?

Barbara Castle introduced the breathalyser even though she could not drive herself, and she also made the 70 mph national speed limit permanent.

Bridget Driscoll, the first pedestrian killed by a car in Britain, was struck in 1896 at which London landmark?

Crystal Palace was hosting demonstration rides in a motor carriage when one struck her as she crossed a terrace in the grounds. The driver claimed he had been travelling at just 4 miles per hour.

Irish scientist Mary Ward, the first person known to be killed by a motor vehicle, fell under what in 1869?

A steam car built by her cousins was the experimental machine whose wheels she fell under at Parsonstown, now Birr. Ward was a naturalist, astronomer and artist famed for her work with the microscope.

On British motorways, which colour of reflective road stud marks a line that may be crossed, such as a slip road?

Green studs mark slip roads and lay-bys. Amber ones line the central reservation, and with red they mark the lines that should not normally be crossed.

Edward Hines had the first painted road centre line laid in Michigan in 1911 after watching a leaky wagon dribble what?

Milk trailing down the street behind the wagon gave Hines, a county road commissioner, his idea. The first painted lines went down on River Road in Trenton, in Wayne County.

The flashing amber globes at Britain's zebra crossings are named after which 1930s Minister of Transport?

Leslie Hore-Belisha added the beacons to pedestrian crossings in 1934, when the crossings themselves were marked only by large metal studs set into the road surface.

Ralph Nader's 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed opened with a chapter attacking which rear-engined Chevrolet?

The Corvair chapter made the book famous, although a 1972 federal report disputed Nader's claims and suggested the car rolled over about as often as similar models.

In 2018, which US state became the first to lower its drink-driving limit to 0.05% blood alcohol?

Utah was repeating itself: in 1983 it had also been the first state to cut its limit from the then-standard 0.10% to 0.08%.

Which US state had no numeric daytime speed limit on its highways from 1995 until a court ruling in 1999?

Montana asked only for a 'reasonable and prudent' speed by day, until its Supreme Court threw the rule out as unconstitutionally vague. At night the limit was 65 miles per hour.

The sloped concrete barrier that divides highway lanes worldwide is named after which US state, its 1950s birthplace?

New Jersey's highway department had the barrier developed to stop cars crossing into oncoming traffic. In a shallow hit a car's tyres ride up the sloped foot, which keeps damage to the bodywork down.

Charles Scanlon, a street painter for the City of Los Angeles, patented which roadwork safety device in 1943?

The traffic cone replaced wooden tripods that Scanlon thought were easily broken, hard to see and a hazard in themselves. His rubber version was built to spring back upright after a glancing blow.

Which American carmaker sold the first US production car with a passenger airbag, in 1973?

General Motors fitted it to the 1973 Oldsmobile Toronado and marketed the bags as its Air Cushion Restraint System. The idea was already two decades old: American John Hetrick had been granted a patent for one in 1953.

Which US president signed the 1966 act that created the first mandatory federal safety standards for motor vehicles?

Lyndon B. Johnson signed it in September 1966, less than a year after Ralph Nader's book Unsafe at Any Speed had put the design of American cars in the dock.

Which crash-test programme, formed in 1996, awards star ratings to new cars sold in Europe?

Euro NCAP was started by Britain's Transport Research Laboratory. It smashes cars in front, side and pole impacts, and also scores how kindly they treat a pedestrian they hit.

Which inventor, who also devised a smoke hood used in a 1916 tunnel rescue, patented a three-way traffic signal in 1923?

Garrett Morgan designed the signal after witnessing a crash between a carriage and a car at a junction. He later sold the rights for $40,000.

British school crossing patrols are nicknamed after which sweet, thanks to the shape of the stop sign they carry?

Lollipop men and women hold up a round stop sign on a stick, and the nickname is used in Ireland and Australia too. Under UK law a motorist who ignores their signal commits an offence.

Which quantity, the one a car's brakes must shed to stop it, quadruples whenever the car's speed doubles?

Kinetic energy is half the mass times the square of the speed. That square is why a modest rise in speed adds so much to a car's stopping distance and to the violence of a crash.

Which of these islands has no general speed limit on its rural two-lane roads?

The Isle of Man, home of the TT motorcycle races, is the only jurisdiction in the world without one. It has no overriding national limit at all: limits are set locally, and some roads carry none.

Followers of which religion may legally ride a motorcycle in Britain without a crash helmet?

Sikhism asks observant men to keep their hair uncut beneath a dastar, or turban, so British law lets them ride bare of a helmet. The same respect for religious dress covers the kirpan.