The use of red for stop signs goes all the way to mid-1800s London, but the use of red in general to mean danger has been around since the time of the Ancient Greeks. While no clear, confirmation on why our stop signs are red has yet to surface, signs point to the use of red by train traffic control systems in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Unlike local traffic laws, signs have federal regulations that demand the red, octagonal appearance.
History
The familiar red octagon that every driver knows today went through a few changes before the standard modern sign. Detroit, Michigan, the heart of the early American automotive industry, first used stop signs during the summer of 1915. The first stop sign had black letters and a white background on a square piece of sheet metal, but highway engineers thought that this might not be the best shape and design. John T. Donaghey and Walter F. Rosenwald spent weeks driving around America to find ideas for what the standard stop sign and other traffic warnings should look like.
Traffic Signal Tradition
The first traffic signal was installed outside the British Parliament building during the late 1860s for horse carriages. It used a simple system: red for stop and green for go. The reason for these colors is still up for debate, but folklore gives credit to farmers. Legend has it that when farmers needed to flag down trains, they used red cloths or shirts. Alternatively, Western culture going back to the Greeks considered red the sign of danger.
Railroad Disaster Origin
The change from the black and white stop sign to white and red also appears to have origins from a railroad accident that occurred in 1914. According to Eric Reiss, red had traditionally been used to signal trains for a stop, green for caution and white for go. A malfunction on a particular light caused a conductor to confuse a red for a white, resulting in a horrible crash. It is likely that the was changed to red to not confuse drivers with a different meaning for the colors of traffic signals and signs.
Shape
Donaghey and Rosenwald's trip across American resulted in a report to the Mississippi Valley Association of State Highway Departments that standardized shapes would be the easiest way for a driver to spot signs far in advance and in the dark. The octagon shape was chosen to mean only one thing: stop. Mostly because the shape is the hardest to cut and would be only sparsely used at the time.
Stop Sign Governance
While the MVASHD was the first organization to try to standardize traffic signs, it was still only a local organization. The National Conference on Street and Highway Safety was working on the same standardization project as the MVASHD. The two would merge during early 1930s and collaborate on the "Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways", which adopted a black and yellow octagon. The color change to red and white was adopted in 1954. Why then and not years earlier is still up for debate.
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