Signs around the world: Spain

Have you ever wondered when you drive on the road and see street signs or road signs; how those signs emerged?  O well, let me take you in a cook’s tour on road signs and street signs.

So the earliest road signs were milestones which give distance or direction. For instance, the Romans erected stone columns throughout their empire giving the distance to Rome. In the Middle Ages, in order to give directions to cities and towns, multidirectional signs were used at the intersections and it became common.

With the evolution of automobiles, traffic signs became more important. One of the first modern-day road sign systems was developed by the Italian Touring Club in 1895. At around 1900, a Congress of the International League of Touring Organizations in Paris considered proposals for standardization of road signage. The basic patterns of most traffic signs were set at the 1908 International Road Congress in Rome. Up until around 1900, In 1909, nine European governments agreed on the use of four pictorial symbols, indicating "bump", "curve", "intersection", and "grade-level railroad crossing". Street signs were often mounted on the corners of buildings, or even chiseled into the masonry, and many of these old-fashioned signs still exist in older neighborhoods. Between the year 1926 and 1949, intensive work on international road signs took place which eventually led to the development of the European road sign system. While the United States developed its own road signage system, which was also adopted by several other nations. Beginning in the 1960s, North American signage also began adopting international symbols and signs into its system.

Over the years, change was gradual. Today, signs are almost all metal, rather than wood, and are coated with retro reflective sheeting of various types for nightime visibility.

So what are the