The protruding cat’s eyes also warned drivers if they were drifting into the other lane. The glass beads not only reflected light, they focused it and directed it back to the car. Then municipalities lined up for the innovation. The government funded Shaw to make 40,000 units a week. Demand was slow, until the Second World War brought mandatory blackouts, which suddenly made nighttime road visibility harder than ever. To test his prototypes, the inventor illegally dug up stretches of local road and installed his devices.
Other versions say the reflection came from tram lines polished by persistent use.Įither way, Shaw soon developed some road studs with two glass beads in a cast-iron shell, designed to be partially imbedded in pavement. On a curvy road with a steep drop-off, Shaw was headed for disaster when the eyes of a cat at the edge of the pavement reflected his headlights and kept him from veering over the edge. There are several stories about how he came up with his idea, but the most famous tells of Shaw driving home from the Old Dolphin pub on a foggy night in 1933. Percy Shaw spent his whole life in the northwestern English town of Halifax, where he worked as a paving contractor.
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