In what decade were Zebra crossings introduced into law in the UK ?
Zebra crossing the United Kingdom, it is the law that motorists give way to pedestrians at zebra crossings (Rule 195 of "The Highway Code"). They were introduced in the late 1940s and '50s to tackle high death rates of pedestrians crossing roads. For over 60 years they have been recognized as a safe place for pedestrians to cross but more recently, some drivers are failing to give way to pedestrians. It is believed that hundreds of people have died at the crossings and thousands more have been injured. This has prompted some councils to install enforcement cameras at the crossings to catch
Zebra crossing on pedestrian crossings controlled by traffic signals. Zebra crossings were originally introduced in law by section 18 of the Road Traffic Act 1934. Although the origin of the name is disputed, it is generally attributed to British MP James Callaghan who, in 1948, visited the country's Transport Research Laboratory which was working on a new idea for safe pedestrian crossings. On being shown a black and white design, Callaghan is said to have remarked that it resembled a zebra. After isolated experiments, the zebra crossing was first used at 1,000 sites in the United Kingdom in 1949 in its original