When I think of octagons, I first think of stop signs. Did you ever wonder why a stop sign has an octagon shape? Well, I never did until Theo was talking about it the other day. Not surprisingly, early roads didn't have traffic signs at all because there was no need for them. However, as there more cars on the road, the need for control increased. Thus the stop sign. The first stop signs were posted in Detroit, Michigan in 1915. They were square and white with black lettering. By 1923, stop signs were standardized to be octagonal. With a standardization of shapes you could tell what the sign was signifying even if you saw it from the back.As for the octagonal shape to the sign, there was a bit of logic to it. The theory was that the more important the sign information was, the more sides it would have. A circle, with infinite sides, was used at railroad crossings where a car doesn't have much of a chance with a train. Next up is the stop sign with eight sides where stopping is important to avoid a collision with another car. Following that is the diamond, with 4 sides, indicating information like pedestrian crossing, and last is the rectangular sign also with 4 sides, but oriented in a more traditional way with information like speed limits. Where does that leave the yield sign with only three sides? It seems to me yielding is more important than the speed limit. However, the yield sign was not added to the highway signs until 1954, long after the other shapes were established.
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| By JERRYE & ROY KLOTZ MD - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24260904 |
There are probably lots of other man made octagons out there, but it's time to move onto P.
https://didyouknowfacts.com/stop-signs-8-sides/
http://www.trafficsign.us/yellowyield.html
