Japanese stop sign inspiration for Monty Python's Flying Circus

AROUND THE BLOCK

News with a Twist

Design of Japanese stop signs might change ahead of Olympic tourism surge

Current signs incomprehensible to foreign visitors

(This is another in a series of Twisted News from Japan, Around The Block’s home away from home.)

Kyodo News and the Japan Times reported today that due to an expected increase in tourists ahead of the 2020 Olympics, the National Police Agency is considering replacing the nation’s stop signs with versions considered more recognizable by foreigners.

While most of the stop signs in western countries are octagonal (as shown above), Japan’s stop signs, which have been used since 1963, are red inverted triangles imprinted with Japanese word “tomare,” which means stop, in white.

Countries such as Britain and Italy introduced the red octagonal signs based on the United Nations Convention on Road Signs and Signals adopted in Vienna in November 1968. 

As is standard with international agreements, the United States, invoking "American exceptionalism,"  did not adopt the 1968 treaty but did standardize behind octagonal signs anyway.

In Japan, stop signs similar to those endorsed by the 1968 convention had been used since 1950 but were replaced with the existing signs in 1963, just before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, on the premise that they would be easier to understand. It is not clear why Japanese officials thought the signs adopted in 1963 would be easier to understand. 

Following is the history of Japanese stop signs showing the evolution from completely understandable signs to the current, completely unintelligible (to foreigners) one.

In an ironic unintended consequence of the 1963 adoption of the Japanese stop sign, it has been reported by sources in Britain that the sign was the inspiration for the Monty Python’s Flying Circus’s Ministry of Silly Walks cross-walk sign, shown below.