101 years of traffic light system
Like all good inventions the first traffic signal was invented by JP Knight, a railway signalling engineer and installed outside houses of Parliament in 1868 the first ever gas-operated non-electric traffic Red-green lights.
Police officers had to work the lights by hand in an effort to control vehicles crossing the nearby Bridge Street, Great George Street and Parliament Street. But in 1869 a gas line passing under the lights exploded and seriously injured the police officer operating the lights.
More than 30 years later an American Lester Wire a detective in Salt Lake City, focused on similar device with some electronic lights in 1912 and now internationally recognisable system of red, amber and green neon lights.
The Google Doodle depicts the world’s first electric traffic light to be installed and put into major use in Clevland, Ohio on August 5, 1914 placed on the corner of Euclid Avenue and East 105th Street. Only in 1920 bells were added to the traffic light systems altering motorists and pedestrians when the lights were about to change which was later replaced with the amber light now seen on all traffic light systems around the world today.