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50 free Road Signs trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The first stop sign was a piece of plywood with its corners sawn off by a Detroit police sergeant in 1914. The first traffic light was gas-lit, stood outside the Houses of Parliament, and blew up. The cow on Britain's farm-animal warning sign was a real animal called Patience. Road signs are full of this kind of thing, because every shape and colour was argued over by a committee somewhere. This quiz covers the whole roadside: the 1968 Vienna Convention and the American MUTCD, the stop signs that say ALTO, PARE, DUR and nothing at all, the yield sign's keystone origins in Tulsa, the Worboys and Anderson committees that rebuilt Britain's signs, the typefaces drivers read at speed, cat's eyes, zebra crossings, Botts' dots, traffic lights called robots, the Autobahn's advisory limit and the Route 66 shields people keep stealing. Fifty questions, four options each, with a short explanation after every answer. Play on your phone or print it for a pub quiz.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which US city did police sergeant Harry Jackson create the first stop sign in 1914?
Detroit
He cut the corners off a piece of plywood, wrote STOP on it and faced it at a blind street; Michigan adopted the idea statewide the next year.
Q 02Why did a 1922 US committee pick the octagon for stop signs?
Drivers could recognise it from behind
A driver seeing the back of the sign knows oncoming traffic must stop. The shape also stood out at night, since early signs were not reflective.
Q 03What background colour did US stop signs have from 1924 to 1954?
Yellow
Fade-resistant red materials did not exist yet. The red-field, white-legend sign was specified in 1954 to match red traffic lights.
Q 04In which year did the MUTCD first specify a white STOP legend on a red field?
1954
The same edition raised the rural mounting height to 5 feet; the current 7-foot height dates from 1971.
Q 05What shape is Japan's stop sign?
An inverted red triangle
South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan use the standard octagon. Zambia and Zimbabwe used a disc with a black cross until 2016.
Q 06Instead of a word, what appears on Israel's stop sign?
A palm-forward hand
Several US Native reservations, by contrast, use their own languages on stop signs to support language revitalisation.
Q 07Stop signs in Mexico and Central America carry which word?
ALTO
It means 'halt'. Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking South American and Caribbean countries use PARE instead.
Q 08Since 1987, stop signs in Quebec have favoured which word?
ARRÊT
France itself uses STOP, and Quebec's language office notes 'stop' has been attested in French since 1927.
Q 09Which European country breaks with STOP and uses the word DUR on its stop signs?
Turkey
Elsewhere in Europe the English word was adopted around the 1970s, to some objections at the time.
Q 10Until 2016, Zambia and Zimbabwe marked stops with what kind of sign?
A disc bearing a black cross
Ten southern African countries follow the SADC road signs manual, an alternative to the Vienna Convention with many similar rules.
Q 11In which year was the first edition of the US Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices published?
1935
That put it 33 years ahead of the Vienna Convention, which the United States has never ratified.
Q 12In which year was the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals agreed?
1968
Thirty-one countries signed on the final day and it came into force in 1978; a 2025 rewrite takes effect in November 2026.
Q 13How many categories of road sign does the Vienna Convention define, from A to H?
Eight
They run from danger warning and priority signs through prohibitory, mandatory and direction signs to additional panels.
Q 21Whose 1963 recommendations produced the British road sign system introduced in 1964?
Worboys
It argued for a clean slate: every old sign was declared obsolete and councils were handed massive replacement programmes.
Q 22Who chaired the 1957 UK committee that designed signs for the new motorways?
Colin Anderson
He was chairman of the shipping line P&O. The Ministry of Transport's T. G. Usborne ran the proceedings.
Q 23Which two designers created Britain's Transport road-sign typeface?
Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert
Q 14Besides triangles, which shape does the Vienna Convention allow for danger warning signs?
Square diamond
The flexibility was meant to make the treaty as universal as possible; it also permits road markings in white or yellow.
Q 15In the United States, standard warning signs are what colour and shape?
Black on yellow diamonds
Temporary construction signs switch to black on orange. Canada, Australia, Mexico and Japan follow the same pattern.
Q 16Which country uses US-style warning signs, diverging from the rest of Europe?
Ireland
Iceland, Ireland and Malta never signed the Vienna Convention, though Iceland and Malta still broadly follow it.
Q 17Svalbard's famous Arctic wildlife warning sign was redesigned to show what?
A white bear on black
It had been a black bear on a white background; both versions are triangular with a red border.
Q 18The first US yield sign was erected in 1950 in which city?
Tulsa
Police officer Clinton Riggs designed it; the yield rule itself already existed. Australia's equivalent was a yellow circle in the 1940s and 50s.
Q 19What shape was Clinton Riggs's original yield sign?
A keystone
New Zealand's early give way sign copied the keystone, in black with a red border. The inverted triangle came later and became the world standard.
Q 20The triangular give way sign was introduced in 1937, in red and white, in which country?
Denmark
The colours matched the national flag. Czechoslovakia codified a blue-white version in 1938.
They found European and American examples harsh and drew a rounder face with distinctive tails on the a, t and l.
Q 24Britain's new motorway signs were first tested in 1958 near which town?
Preston
It is now part of the M6. A year later the signs went up on the M1 between London and Yorkshire.
Q 25The UK 'farm animals' sign is based on a real cow named what?
Patience
She lived on a farm near where Margaret Calvert grew up. The 'men at work' man is simply digging.
Q 26Margaret Calvert said the girl on the UK 'schoolchildren nearby' sign was modelled on whom?
Herself
The sign shows a girl leading a boy by the hand, replacing a 1921 'flaming torch of knowledge' symbol that few drivers understood.
Q 27What colour scheme do UK motorway direction signs use?
White on blue
Primary routes are white on dark green with yellow route numbers; non-primary routes are black on white.
Q 28What colour are UK route numbers on the white-on-green primary route signs?
Yellow
Dartmoor National Park adds its own light-blue and brown bordered white signs to grade which vehicles fit its lanes.
Q 29UK direction signs for tourist attractions, introduced in 1994, use which colours?
White on brown
The 2002 regulations added black-on-yellow signs for roadworks.
Q 30On 1921 British signs, a 'flaming torch of knowledge' symbol warned of what?
School
It was the least intuitive of the eight new danger plates and was replaced by a silhouette of children in 1957.