Yield: The Little Sign That Could

Within The Realm

Yield: The Little Sign That Could The familiar downward pointing triangle that allows traffic to keep flowing rather than stopping sprang from the mind of a Tulsa cop. No one gave his sign much respect, but he set out to prove them all wrong. withinpodcast.com

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Yield: The Little Sign That Could

Welcome to Within The Realm, I’m your host Steve Garrett.

Thanks for joining me here on the show where the Indian Territory, the Ozark Mountains and the Great Plains collide. Because of the great amount of diversity, culturally, geographically and in experience that’s found here, anything is Within The Realm of possibility.

Some times the things in the world around us have become so common place, so much a part of how we do things, we’re not sure where they came from or even anything about their beginnings. Today’s episode is about such a thing, something that makes it a little safer for you to get from place to place. After these words about our sponsors, we’ll get into Oklahoma’s contribution to traffic control signs.

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It’s good to have you back for another installment of Within The Realm. It’s my goal to take the next few minutes to entertain you and maybe lay a little knowledge on you that you didn’t already know.

Today’s subject is traffic signs, one in particular actually. It’s the Red and White triangle with the word Yield written across it. It the thing that makes a traffic circle work, not bringing us to a stop, necessarily, but providing drivers with the instruction to watch it in association with other cars on the road.

It might be hard for a motorist in the third decade of the twenty-first century to think of a time with out the uniform traffic signs we have now, but everything has a beginning.

It was 1939 and Oklahoma Highway Patrolman Clinton Riggs was participating in a fellowship at Northwestern Traffic Institute in Chicago. One topic of discussion was the problem of motorists rolling through uncontrolled intersections, causing accidents and injuries. The discussion became a class assignment on how best to address the problem.

In the next several days, Patrolman Riggs presented his idea for a sign, there was already the stop sign that stopped traffic all together. No, Riggs’s idea was for signage that would allow traffic to continue to flow until one motorist needed to give the right-of-way to another vehicle.

The sign he suggested was a keystone shaped sign with a solitary word on it – Yield.

It was generally panned by the class as hard to understand and somewhat unnecessary as laws, laws misunderstood and ignored by motorists, were already on the books to determine fault in accidents where drivers did not yeild.

The fellowship ended and Riggs rejoined the Tulsa Police Department, served in the Second World War and returned home in one piece. A lot had happened since his suggestion of the Yeild sign, but he not forgotten it. He was still very much convinced of it’s usefulness. . His Chicago detractors had convinced his to change the sign’s wording to “SLOW Yield Right Of Way.” It wasn’t only his class mates that thought little of his traffic control sign. The Tulsa City attorney dismissed it and the National Safety Council, to whom Riggs had sent a drawing of his sign, ignored it.

By 1950, Riggs had worked his way up to an assistant chief position with the Tulsa Police Department. He noted that the intersection of First Street and Columbia Avenue , an unmarked intersection, was the most dangerous crossraods in Tulsa. Without any official permission, he and city engineer Paul Rice erected the first Yeild Right of Way Sign.

The sign had retained it’s keystone shape and had black letters on a yellow background so the sign could be better seen in the dark.

Despite what the naysayers believed, that very first installation of yeild signs decreased traffic accidents to basically zero. Similar results were experienced at the other nine intersections Riggs and Rice had also placed signs.

Other cities copied the idea with their own variations of shapes and colors until the yeild sign was adopted a four short years later by the MUTCD – the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices. The formally adopted sign was tweaked to the familiar downward pointing triangle with Yeild written upon it’s yellow background.

In 1971, the sign was changed to its current red and white triangle with red lettering.

Riggs passed away in 1997 In Tulsa after having introduced other innovations to the Police Department and earning a law degree, The original Keystone shaped sign hangs in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC.

So what does this sign that not a stop sign and quite a yellow light do for us. It is quite genius, allowiing traffic to flow until it doesn’t need to. Even though it met with a lot of opposition from experts in the field, Rigg’s impetuous installations and their positive results couldn’t be ignored. It took only four years for the signs to go from geurilla traffic control to industry standard.

Is the main take away from this story believe in your ideas even when no one else will or go ahead, show them all your idea will work. I’ll let you decide and I’d like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Until then, whenever you slowdown at a yield sign remember at one time it was a good idea no one else could see the benefit of.

Thanks for joining us on this episode of Within The Realm. If you want to weigh in on the “What’s the big takeway” sweepstakes from this episode, you can contact us on our socials or through email. Links in the show notes.

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Within The Realm is written and produced by me, Steve Garrett. Our theme and ending credit music is provided by 556 and a half.

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