Zebra crossings were originally introduced in law by section 18 of the Road Traffic Act 1934.[3]
Although the origin of the name is disputed, it is generally attributed to British MP James Callaghan who, in 1948, visited the country's Transport Research Laboratory which was working on a new idea for safe pedestrian crossings. On being shown a black and white design, Callaghan is said to have remarked that it resembled a zebra. After isolated experiments, the zebra crossing was first used at 1,000 sites in the United Kingdom in 1949 in its original form of alternating strips of blue and yellow.They were introduced nationally in 1951.