History of the traffic light

Traffic lights were invented before the car. In 1868, British railroad signal engineer J.P. Knight invented the first traffic light, a lantern with red and green signals. It was installed at the George and Bridge Streets intersection in front of the British House of Commons to control the flow of horse buggies and pedestrians. Motorcars were introduced to the U.S. in the late 1890s, and the need for traffic control soon became obvious, and several people came up with ideas for traffic control. In 1910, Earnest Sirrine of Chicago filed for a patent for what is considered the first automatic street traffic system, using non-illuminated words STOP and PROCEED. In 1912, Lester Wire of Salt Lake City invented an electric traffic light that used red and green lights. The next year, James Hoge came up with a manually controlled traffic light system using electric lights.