Cat's Eye Reflections

Sad news about the cat's-eye reflector. This was one of those great British inventions hit upon by chance by a gifted amateur with a bright idea - which used to be the British way, and perhaps still is. It's gloriously simple, has lasted for more than 70 years - and will surely last a great deal longer, at least on minor roads - and it must have saved thousands of lives. Its inventor, the great Yorkshireman Percy Shaw, offered various accounts of what gave him his idea - but he felt the need for such an invention expecially acutely as he was in the habit of going out for 'a few beers' of an evening and was fed up with veering off the road on the way home. And so the rolling English drunkard made the safer English road.