On Aug. 5, 1914, a four-way traffic signal was installed in the busy Cleveland, Ohio, intersection of Euclid Avenue and East 105th Street. Why was this seemingly mundane event 101 years ago important? Because it was the first electric traffic signal that resembles what's seen all over the world today. It wasn't automatic; it was operated by a police officer in a booth. There were only red and green lights. This was the first stoplight that was a permanent fixture from a patented design.
Other
attempts were made to control traffic via light signals, but they were
miserable failures: a gas-powered traffic signal installed in London in the
1860s exploded, and a device created by a former detective, Lester Wire, in
Salt Lake City in 1912 was considered a temporary electronic traffic light. Here
are some interesting facts about traffic lights that keep our roads from being
in utter chaos:
·
Can the police drive
through a red light-The police, and other
emergency services including fire and rescue, ambulance, bomb and explosive
disposal, national blood service, Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) and
special forces are allowed to treat a red light as a ‘Give Way’ signal if they
are on an emergency call. Some countries – but not the United Kingdom –
have an override on their traffic lights, changing them to green to allow the
emergency services through more safely by stopping all other traffic.
·
The EnLighten app
taps into city traffic management systems to give drivers traffic light status- While the traffic
light seems like it's seemingly unchanged since the invention of the amber
light, it's evolved over the decades to be a cutting-edge technological device,
sporting energy-saving LEDs, and being controlled by massive central traffic
management centers in most cities.
Now,
the technology is set to take a big leap. A Korean firm, for instance, is
designing a light to display news headlines to keep drivers from
distractedly looking at their phones at a red light. England's Newcastle
University is testing a system that will "talk" to your car's
navigation system,
which will display how fast the driver needs to travel to avoid red lights. And
EnLighten has developed an app that coordinates with a city's traffic
management system to let drivers know the status of nearby lights.
·
The traffic light
patent-General
Electric owns the patent for the basic three-way traffic light
system, having bought it for a measly $40,000 from Garrett Morgan who filed
patent number 1,475,024 on 20 November 1923.
His
system was revolutionary because it stopped traffic from all directions with a
third signal temporarily allowing the junction to clear before activating the
next red or green signal as appropriate; previous systems had simply gone from
red to green without pause, leading to accidents.
The
system was later modified further with the addition of an amber signal. Garrett
Morgan also invented the gas mask in 1912 and he is credited with saving
thousands of lives as a result of his two inventions.
·
The urban myth-Received wisdom has
it that you can drive through a red traffic light if you think they are broken
and stuck on red. This isn’t true: the law is very clear and says that you must
not pass through a red traffic light unless directed to do so by a uniformed
police.
Common-sense
says that you should be able to drive through a traffic light that is stuck on
red but if you do and are prosecuted, you will need to prove that the traffic
lights were faulty, and that you had no option but to proceed through them in
order to mount a defense.
·
The world's oldest
traffic light is in Ashville, Ohio-Unless some other town steps up and makes
the claim, the world's oldest operational traffic light resides in Ashville, Ohio. It was installed in 1932, and it
looked a bit odd by any standard; more like an Art Deco-era rocket ship than a
rectangular box. And the lights appeared via a radar-like swipe.
·
The yellow light
didn't exist until the 1920s-With only a red and green signal, drivers
didn't have an interval to slow down, save a warning whistle. On busy and noisy
intersections that system caused plenty of accidents. In 1920, a Detroit police
officer named William Potts added the yellow (or amber) signal to warn drivers.
·
Then there were bells-In
1920, bells were added to traffic control machines to alert motorists that the
lights are about to change. Later on, it was replaced by the amber/yellow light
we see today.
·
Timers were
born late-Back then, traffic lights didn’t have timers and it wasn’t
until 1990 when the world first witnessed timers beside the lights. This lets
pedestrians know whether there’s enough time for them to cross.
·
Walk / don’t
walk signs-Before the timers, there was the walk / don’t walk signs,
first installed in New York in 1952. This was many years after the very first
electric traffic light was installed in Ohio in 1914.
·
Why red, amber and green-The use of red and green signals
had been used on the railways for years, so it made sense to extend their use
to the road network too. The trouble was that the two-light system didn’t give
drivers any warning, and accidents were common on congested city roads.
“Americans are incredibly
inpatient. Someone once said that the shortest period of time in America is the
time between when the light turns green and when you hear the first horn honk.”
(Jim Rohn) [i]
[i] Sources used:
·
“6
fun facts about traffic lights” by Joel Keller
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