People walking on the street are now accustomed to following the instructions of traffic lights to orderly pass through intersections. But have you ever thought about who invented the traffic light? According to records, a traffic light in the world was used in the Westmeister district of London, England in 1868. The traffic lights at that time were only red and green, and were lit with gas.
It was not until 1914 that the traffic lights of electric switches were used in Cleveland, Ohio. This device laid the foundation for modern traffic command signals.When the time entered 1918, the United States installed a global tri-color traffic signal on a tall tower on Fifth Avenue in New York City. It was a Chinese who proposed the idea of adding yellow signal lights to the original red and green signal lights.
This Chinese is called Hu Ruding. At that time, he went to the United States with the ambition of "scientific saving the country". He worked as an employee of General Electric Company, where the inventor Edison was the chairman. One day, he stood at a busy intersection waiting for a green light signal. When he saw a red light and was about to pass, a turning car passed by with a cry, scaring him to cold sweats. Back at the dormitory, he pondered over and over again and finally thought of adding a yellow signal light between the red and green lights to remind people to pay attention to the danger. His proposal was immediately affirmed by the relevant parties. Therefore, the red, yellow and green signal lights are a complete command signal family, covering the land, sea and air transportation fields all over the world.
The following important time points for the development of traffic lights:
-In 1868, a world traffic light was born in the UK;
-In 1914, electronically controlled traffic lights first appeared on the streets of Cleveland, Ohio;
-In 1918, the United States was equipped with a red, yellow, and green three-color manual traffic signal on Fifth Avenue;
-In 1925, London, United Kingdom introduced three-color signal lights, and once used yellow lights as "preparation lights" before red lights (before this, the United States used yellow lights to indicate car turning);
-In 1928, China's early traffic lights appeared in the British Concession in Shanghai. Beijing's early traffic lights appeared in Xijiaomin Lane in 1932.
-In 1954, the former Federal Germany first used the line control method of pre-signal and speed indication (Beijing used a similar line to control traffic lights in February 1985).
-In 1959, traffic lights controlled by computer areas were born.
So far, the traffic lights have been relatively perfect. There are various types of traffic lights, full screen traffic lights, arrow traffic lights, dynamic pedestrian traffic lights, traffic lights, etc. , "Red lights stop, green lights" to protect our travel together.