Imagine our fast paced streets without traffic lights. What a mess it would create. Well even back in the 1800's it was still a problem with pedestrians getting run over by hoarse and buggies.
In 1868, across the seas, the city of London found a way to deal with this problem. They created a gas powered lantern with red and green signals. This lantern was placed at a busy corner and was rotated by hand. This version proved to be a bit unsafe when the lantern exploded and killed the police officer controlling it. Fast forward to the early 1920's in America where two people had invented a more modern version. Detroit police officer William Potts created a traffic light by adapting a railroad signal and African American inventor Garrett A. Morgan came up with an electric rotating version. Although Garrett was the first to receive a patent for his light, Potts' light was already being used on the streets. Some still dispute over who was the first to actually invent the traffic light. Either way it has become one of the most important traffic controlling devices still used today.
Work cited:
Candice Solomon. "Traffic light, 1923." 24 June 2009. http://www.isrl.illinois.edu/~chip/projects/timeline/1923solomon.htm
John Crandall. "Who invented the traffic light? William Potts of Detroit." 5 April 2007. Suite 101.com 24 June 2009. http://transportationhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/who_invented_the_traffic_light
Traffic lights are an important part of controlling our over populated streets full of automobiles and other forms of transportation. It’s amazing that this invention which was created so very long ago has not really changed much in the current day. I wonder if traffic lights will eventually adapt into something more Sci-Fi as we head into the future.
ReplyDeletewhen populations grew and cities become larger there was a need to make the streets safer.The traffic light shows how one technology can improved society. . people were still using horses and carraiges when automobiles were invented. They were quite slow ,hard to steer and roads were quite wide. Traffic lights didn’t really become essential until amount of cars on the roads increased and performance of cars improved.
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