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WHO INVENTED CATS EYES? - posted by Jayne
I BELIEVE THIS WAS A YORKSHIRE MAN IN THE FIFTIES!
HOWEVER I HAVE JUST BEEN TOLD IT WAS AN AMERICAN IN CALIFORNIA THEY ARE CALLED SOMETHING "DOTS'" DANS DOTS OR DOUGANS DOTS. I NEED TO KNOW WHO THOUGHT OF THE REFLECTIVE PIECES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD!

Jayne
Posted by - Jayne

Responses
Catseye
14/03/2006
17:02:29
By keith9351
Catseye
Designer: Percy Shaw


One dark night when the road mender Percy Shaw was driving home in the Yorkshire town of Halifax, he saw the light of his car headlamps reflected in the eyes of a cat sitting beside the road. Shaw realised that by replicating this effect he could produce a practical way of helping drivers to navigate poorly lit roads at night, even in the worst weather conditions.

Shaw designed a small device to be inserted into the road as a marker. It consisted of a pair of shiny glass and metal beads embedded in a flexible rubber dome which would reflect the lights of oncoming traffic like cat's eyes. When vehicles drove over the dome it contracted and the beads dropped safely beneath the road surface. Shaw even devised a way for his Cat's Eyes to clean themselves. Whenever the dome was depressed a rubber wiper brushed rainwater across the beads to clear any dust or grime.

Cat's Eyes have since guided drivers along roads all over the world and the ingenious Percy Shaw enjoyed a prosperous life thanks to a shrewd decision to patent his invention in 1934.
Percy
10/12/2007
21:33:27
By sturdle
seems he had no carpets but a TV in every room in his house.....
odd us Yorkshire folk....
percy
13/07/2008
12:02:40
By whacker
Yes I remember seeing a documentry about him on TV some years ago...it was very interesting. As you said sturdle..he had no carpets but always had hie friends around him having a bevvy...lol
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