December 9 - Traffic Lights

This Day in History: 9 December 2019

 

9 December 1868

 

151 years ago, today, the first non-electric gas-light traffic lights were installed outside the Place of Westminster in London, to control the traffic in Bridge Street, Great George Street and Parliament Street. The idea was first suggested by railway engineer, J.P. Knight, who had been inspired by the design of railway signalling systems, and the final design combined semaphore arms with red and green gas lamps. In these traffic lights, a gas lantern was manually turned on by a police officer with a lever at the base, in order for the appropriate light faced the traffic, which is very different to modern day automatic lights. The semaphore arms of the traffic lights would extend horizontally, which instructed drivers to stop, and then would lower to a 45-degree angle to signal to proceed with caution. At night, a red light would command stop, and a green light would mean caution.

 

The main reason for the first traffic light installation was due to the overflow of horse-drawn traffic over Westminster Bridge, which forced thousands of people to walk next to the Houses of Parliament. It was said, at the time, to be successful at controlling the traffic, but its operational life was brief, as it exploded on 2 January 1869, less than a month after it was installed. This was as a result of a leak in one of the gas lines underneath the pavement and injured the policeman who was operating it. After this, however, traffic lights began to be used all over the United States but were modified to have the words 'stop' and 'go' in white, and instead had kerosene lamps for night travellers. Traffic lights were also implemented in Paris in 1912 and started to be controlled by automatic timers in 1922, with Wolverhampton being the first British town to introduce these.

 

Want to find out more on the history of traffic lights? Visithttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_light for more information.