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A stop sign is a traffic sign, usually erected at road junctions, that instructs drivers to make a brief and temporary, but complete, stop upon reaching it, and then to proceed only if the way ahead is clear.
Stop signs are not generally required at every intersection, but they are often used to control conflicting traffic movements at dangerous intersections which are not busy enough to justify the installation of either traffic lights or, especially in Europe, a roundabout. In the United States and Canada they are commonly used in residential areas, and near places where children play, as a general traffic calming measure. In these countries it is not uncommon for stop signs to be erected on all three or four intersecting roads.
Standard sized stop signs are 30" long with a 3/4" white line around the edge. The letters of the stop sign are all 10" tall. Larger signs are used on multilane roadways or where driver reaction to standard sized signs is poor. Oversized stop signs can in some cases reduce crashes caused by running the stop sign.
The following remarks concerning the right-of-way rules at intersections with multiple stop signs apply to the United States and Canada:
- Generally, the driver who stops first continues first.
- If two drivers stop simultaneously at stop signs at a single intersection, the general rule is that the car on the right has the right of way. Common sense applies.
- Stop signs may be augmented with additional information such as a plate bearing the legend "ALL WAY". This is important, because a driver accustomed to negotiating four-way stops may falsely believe when encountering a two-way stop that cross traffic is required to stop. Since the first car to stop has the right of way at a four-way stop, this driver may believe that it is safe to turn in front of the oncoming traffic. Therefore, if there is only a plain stop sign, the assumption has to be that cross traffic will not stop. "ALL WAY" plates are provided on the fail-safe principle that if they are missing (through disrepair, vandalism, etc.) the "more dangerous" message is given.
Stop signs, usually based on the American design, are found all over the world, although in Europe they tend to be used far more sparingly than in North America (with most intersections lacking traffic lights being controlled by give way signs or equivalent road markings), stop signs generally being restricted (on the principle that "familiarity breeds contempt") to situations where coming to a dead stop is absolutely essential because of poor visibility at the intersection concerned. In all countries, the driver must actually stop at stop signs even if no vehicles or pedestrians are visible. However, some drivers practice the illegal manoeuvre known as a rolling, "Chicago," or "California" stop: slowing down significantly but not stopping completely at the sign.
The purposeful removal of stop signs began in the 1980s as a college prank and, today, one may find illegally obtained stop signs hanging in the occasional college dorm rooms. The intentional removal of stop signs from their posted locations is a crime in most U.S. states. Fatal accidents caused by someone removing a stop sign on purpose could also result in manslaughter charges against the offender.
Yield signs ("Give way" signs in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand), on the other hand, require the driver only to slow and prepare to stop, but do not require an actual stop if the way ahead is clear.
History
Stop signs originated in Detroit, Michigan in 1915. The first had black letters on a white background and were somewhat smaller than the modern one. As they became more widespread, a committee supported by the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) met in 1922 to standardize them, and it selected the octagonal shape that has been used in the U.S. ever since. The unique eight-sided shape of the sign allows drivers facing the back of the sign to identify that oncoming drivers have a stop sign and prevent confusion with other traffic signs.
In 1924, the sign changed to black on yellow, the predominant color until 1954. Another competing group, the National Conference on Street and Highway Safety (NCSHS), simultaneously advocated an even smaller, red-on-yellow stop sign. All of these signs were typically mounted only two or three feet above the ground.
These two organizations conflicted but eventually combined into the Joint Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, which in 1935 published the famous Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways (MUTCD) detailing the stop sign's appearance. The MUTCD stop sign was altered eight times between 1935 and 1971, mostly dealing with its reflectorization and its mounting height; the most drastic change came in 1954, when the sign gained its white-on-red color. Red is also the color for stop on traffic signals, unifying red as stop signal for drivers worldwide.
Although already widespread, use of the MUTCD stop sign passed into law in the United States in 1966. The mounting height reached its current level of 2.1 m (7 ft) in 1971. They were later adopted by the European Union as part of their effort to standardize road travel across member countries.
Sign variants
Although English-speaking and European Union countries use the original word "STOP" on stop signs, most countries, and sometimes even smaller political districts, prefer to use a roughly equivalent word in their primary language instead; its appearance is otherwise the same of white text on a red octagon. The few known exceptions include Israel (which uses a solid white hand on a red octagon) and Japan (which uses the local word for Stop in white type on an inverted solid red triangle). Although the word used isn't universally standardized, some commonly seen examples are:
| Language | Word | Countries or regions where used | Example |
| Arabic | قف | Arab countries including Saudi Arabia |
| Chinese | 停 (tíng) | China, Hong Kong, Taiwan In Mainland China, a stop sign is officially defined to "stop the vehicle to yield the passage" (). Older stop sign pursuant to GB 5768-86 resembled a triangular Yield sign with more red color, so that it was more emphatic. GB 5768-1999 replacing GB 5768-86 ([http://www.jincao.com/fa/law18.14.htm link in Chinese) has adopted the red octogon that would be almost the same as, though a little different from, the Taiwanese stop sign. However, the red triangular stop sign is still used in Japan (see below). |
| Huron | SETEN | In parts of Canada with Wyandot people. Often seen as bilingual "ARRÊT SETEN" signs. |
| Portuguese | PARE | Brazil |
| Serbian | СТОП | Serbia (This is not a Slavic word but merely the transliteration of the word "STOP" into Cyrillic characters) |
| Spanish | ALTO | Mexico and elsewhere (not Spain) |
| Spanish | PARE | Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Argentina. (Stop signs are almost universally ignored in Argentina; at best, drivers slow down a bit.) |
| Turkish | DUR | Turkey |
See also
External links
"Stop sign"
