What Blue Stop Signs Mean and Where to Find Them

Red means “stop,” but what about blue?

Drivers are noticing more than one stop sign color. Here’s where you might mind different colors and what they mean.

What Does A Blue Stop Sign Mean?

You don’t even have to read the word “stop” before your foot automatically presses down on the brake pedal. It is ingrained in our head, even before we are of legal driving age, that the color red means we need to stop.

Apparently blue means the same thing.

Reader’s Digest recently found that, while rare, blue stop signs do exist on U.S. soil. The website says blue stop signs are most often found on private property and especially in Hawaii.

That doesn’t mean drivers there aren’t thrown off by the sudden change in stop sign color either.

“But the sightings of blue stop signs are reported most often in the Aloha State, with drivers clearly bewildered by their appearance,” Reader’s Digest said in its report.

Where You Can Find Blue Traffic Lights

You can file blue traffic lights in the same category as blue stop signs when it comes to head-scratching anomalies you may find while traveling. Only you’ll have to look outside the U.S. to find this one.

For years, Japan used blue instead of green in its traffic lights. The reason behind it, according to Mental Floss, came down to a “linguistic quirk.”

“While there are now separate terms for blue and green, in Old Japanese, the word ‘ao’ was used for both colors,” the website said.

READ MORE: Why A Loose Light Bulb Means You Should Immediately Lock Your Doors

Blue remained part of the traffic light color scheme up until 1973 when government moved to used green instead as long as it was the “bluest shade of green.”

“They can still qualify as ‘ao,’ but they’re also green enough to mean ‘go’ to foreigners,” Mental Floss says.