Seeing the Light: A History of the Cataphote Reflector

Cataphotes, more commonly known as “cat’s eyes,” are a type of retroflective bead used in street signs to increase visibility without causing light pollution or disruption. Different variations of retroflectors have been in use on signs since the mid-1920s, and cataphote reflectors themselves introduced for the first time in 1933, in the United Kingdom.

These dome-shaped reflective beads were initially used as raised pavement markers on highways. As road marking devices, cat’s eyes were installed along the center of roadways so that they could reflect a path for motorists to follow in the dark or through thick fog. Cataphote reflectors along the center of a street consisted of two small beads encased in a raised rubber half-dome. Later, single-ended versions appeared on the sides of roads as well, alerting drivers to the outer limits of the highway.

The inventor of cat’s eyes, Percy Shaw, was an English businessman and road contractor from Halifax, West Yorkshire. After the nearby suburb of Ambler Thorn removed its tram-lines, Shaw realized that he had been using the polished steel strips’ reflectivity to guide his car along the roads at night. Their shiny lacquer had been incredibly useful, reflecting Shaw’s automobile headlights, guiding him along the dark streets. Without the tram tracks, Shaw had difficulty navigating the roads after sundown.

Percy Shaw drew inspiration from the absence of the once-useful inlaid steel and saw an opportunity to improve driver safety and road visibility. He began searching for a more efficient reflective material to light the roads at night without glare. Shaw’s fellow Englishman, Richard Hollins Murray, had recently taken advantage of the reflective lens, which was conceived six years prior as a device to install on advertisement signs to make them more visible at night.

Deriving his own version from Richard Hollins Murray’s favored reflective lens, Shaw designed the road-friendly cataphote reflector. His challenge was to create a device with maximum visibility in any weather, while minimizing its susceptibility to damage. Since cataphote reflectors would be installed in the hundreds and eventually thousands along English roads, Shaw worked to design a product that required minimal upkeep. He coined the nickname "cat’s eyes" because the device brought to mind the eyeshine, or tapetum lucidum, of feline eyes.

With a total of four glass beads set in pairs and facing opposite one another, the reflectors of the cat’s eye were encased in flexible rubber molding. The “eyes” used photolithographic technology to produce their unique concentrated reflective glare. Finally, the apparatus was mounted on a cast iron base that could be sealed into roadways with asphalt. With simplicity in mind, Shaw also crafted the cat’s eye with a self-cleaning function. As water collected in the base after a rainfall, a fixed rubber wiper on the top of the contraption would clean the surface of the reflectors each time a vehicle drove over the protective rubber shield on top. By 1934, Shaw had patented his invention. A year later, on March 15, 1935, Shaw founded his own manufacturing company in Halifax called Reflecting Roadstuds. The company trademarked the term Catseye and began to distribute the groundbreaking technology.

In 1936, Shaw’s business had yet to take off. Shaw sponsored a public experiment on a dangerous stretch of road outside of Bradford by installing fifty cataphote reflectors. Keeping track of previous years’ statistics, Shaw and his colleagues determined that the sharp decline in traffic accidents on the road could be attributed to the installation of the cat’s eyes. Nevertheless, it still took several years for Shaw’s invention to fall into the public eye.

In 1937, the British Department for Transport staged a competition to determine the most resilient road reflector. With the cost of automobiles lessening, streets once trotted by equestrian transport were becoming clogged late at night with cars. The Department for Transport hosted the contest in response to an exponential increase in nighttime traffic collisions. Percy Shaw, with his company, Reflecting Roadstuds Limited, entered the competition with his Catseyes and won. His competitors were disqualified after their entries were damaged during the trials or failed to provide adequate, concentrated light for the testing automobiles.

Luckily, Shaw’s magical bead was produced just in time for the Second World War, and found its breakthrough with the support of the British military and government. Wartime blackouts were a common occurrence throughout the United Kingdom from 1939-1945, as a method for obscuring the sightlines of enemy aircraft. Cataphote reflectors provided drivers a safe passage home in the event of a blackout without calling unwanted attention to roads and pathways.

Cataphote reflectors also proved their reliability in the 1940s with the rise in popularity of shuttered headlights. Today, headlight shutters are installed mainly on massive military vehicles like Hummers, to cloak their visibility from above. During World War II, most of the automobiles were manufactured with shuttered headlights, as a reaction to the militant nature of the times. The installation of cat’s eyes along roads helped cars with low-pointing lights to drive discreetly.

The inventor of cat’s eyes, Percy Shaw, was an English businessman and road contractor from Halifax, West Yorkshire. After the nearby suburb of Ambler Thorn removed its tram-lines, Shaw realized that he had been using the polished steel strips’ reflectivity to guide his car along the roads at night. Their shiny lacquer had been incredibly useful, reflecting Shaw’s automobile headlights, guiding him along the dark streets. Without the tram tracks, Shaw had difficulty navigating the roads after sundown.

Cataphote reflectors also proved their reliability in the 1940s with the rise in popularity of shuttered headlights. Today, headlight shutters are installed mainly on massive military vehicles like Hummers, to cloak their visibility from above. During World War II, most of the automobiles were manufactured with shuttered headlights, as a reaction to the militant nature of the times. The installation of cat’s eyes along roads helped cars with low-pointing lights to drive discreetly.