14 July 2009
Who invented the traffic light?
Posted by Cecilia under: Culture .
Even before the first cars appeared on city streets there was heavy traffic. The only difference was traffic consisted of horses and buggies. Police officers were even stationed full time to direct traffic on busy intersections.
The very first traffic light was installed in London in 1868. It was a revolving lantern with red and green signals operated by a police officer. Contrary to modern lights, this horse and buggy light displayed red for “go” and green for “caution”. The first traffic light was short live, however, because it exploded only a year later on January 2, 1869.
When cars appeared on the streets the traffic situation got worse. Police Officer William L. Potts of Detroit, Michigan, decided to do something. He adapted the railroad system with automatic controls using red, amber and green railroad lights and created the first electrically controlled 4-way three color traffic light.
Potts’ light was installed in 1920 on the corner of Woodward and Michigan Avenues in Detroit. Within a year, Detroit had installed a total of fifteen of the new automatic lights. In less than 100 years that number has grown to over 50 million in the U.S. by some estimates.
One Comment so far...
Today in Sikantis – July 14, 2009 « Sikantis Says:
14 July 2009 at 8:46 am.
[...] Special Nws – Who invented the traffic light? [...]
