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This year, San Jose celebrates 20 years of its Turkey Trot. I believe for all the turkeys to be safe, the streets are closed to cars this year … probably the years before as well. But when the streets aren’t closed, how would we keep these turkeys safer? At intersections, the turkey would presumably have right-of-way already, but what about mid-section in front of a school or park? How would a driver at a higher speed recognize a place where our turkey might want to cross? Traffic engineers in the UK must have asked themself the exact same question, so they first tried with poles and signs, but when tunnel vision came into play, those weren’t enough. So, the traffic engineers went back to the drawing board and started to experiment with painting the streets.
First Try: Zebra Crossing (1951)
The experimentation with colors and markings had already started in 1940. But the actual birth year is said to be 1951. The name Zebra Crossing was apparently first given by Jim Callaghan before he became UK Prime Minister. Some drawbacks of a zebra crossing are that the markings are hard to see at night, invisible under snow, or just too easy to ignore. Stopping still seemed kind of optional to drivers. The humble zebra crossing received a considerable celebrity boost when it was featured by The Beatles on their album Abbey Road in 1969.
Conclusion: the zebra crossing wasn’t safe enough! […]
Redwood City approves new design standards for residential and mixed-use developmentNovember 1, 2026 9:37 am
