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| Ilustration. Cleveland's electric traffic signal system, installed on August 5, 1914. (The American City and Country/Vox.com) |
Traffic lights are an inseparable
and important part of city life, especially in activities on the highway. You
can imagine a city with a fairly dense number of vehicles without a regulatory
system called Traffic Lights, which would definitely experience severe traffic
jams. Traffic lights are also commonly called APILL (Traffic Signaling
Devices), which function to regulate and control traffic flow. This device,
which is also called a Traffic Light, is installed at road intersections and
pedestrian crossings (zebra crossings).
The importance of this tool is
that it is considered a public security and safety light for road users. As is
known, those who obey traffic rules tend to avoid accidents, whereas those who
violate often have accidents. In many cases, individuals who try to pass
through stop (red) traffic lights experience accidents due to collisions. Some
of them only suffered injuries, but quite a few also died.
So where does the Traffic Light
actually start and originate from? In history, it is recorded that this tool (manual
form) was first recognized in London, England in the 19th century.
As is known, London was once a
record breaker as the city with the worst traffic management, because of
extraordinary congestion. The capital of England is listed as the 25th most congested
city in the world. It was recorded that at that time there were approximately
13 thousand vehicles operating on this city's roads.
The traffic jams of 19th century
London were reviewed in a book entitled Victorian London: The Life of a City
1840-1870 (2006) written by British Historian, Liza Picard. This 496 book
published by Phoenix House is a representation of the author's interest in the
reality of everyday life and the conditions in which most people live.
According to this alumnus of the London School of Economics and Political
Science and born in Great Britain (1927), this phenomenon is often overlooked
in history books.
According to the BBC, as quoted
from Hai-online.com, it was stated that horse-drawn carriages and pedestrians
had crowded the streets of the City of London. This prompted the British
railway manager, John Peake Knight, to suggest adapting the synchronization
method usually used by trains to control traffic on the road.
It was also stated that through
Knight's adaptation method, traffic signals will display "Stop" and
"Go" signs during the day, and at night, red and green lights will be
used. Gas lamps would illuminate the sign. A police officer was stationed not
far from the traffic signal to operate it.
Still according to
Hai-online.com, the world's first traffic signal was installed on December 9,
1868, at the intersection of Bridge Street and Great George Street in the
Westminster area, London, near the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Bridge.
However, unfortunately, only a month later, a policeman who was in charge of
controlling the signal was seriously injured due to a lamp exploding due to a
gas leak. Since then, this product was considered dangerous and was finally removed.
In its development, electric
traffic lights were finally discovered by Lester Farnsworth Wire in Salt Lake
City, North America, who introduced traffic lights which began to be used in
1912. Initially the traffic lights used only had two colors, namely green (move
= move) and red (stop = stop).
During its development, this tool
continued to be modified until it found its modern form. In a book entitled How
the Automobile Change History: Essential Library of Invention (2015) by Diane
Bailey, it is stated that the first modern lights were installed at the
intersection between Eucid Avenue and East 105th Street, Cleveland, Ohio,
United States.
Just to say that this 112 page book, published by Abdo Publishing, also reviews automotive history by examining the beginnings of cars as motorized trains, how they work, and their evolution to become the main form of transportation in the world due to cultural, industrial and environmental influences.
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| Traffic light illustration (Source: Realita Rakyat) |
Traffic lights in their
development were not just a tool to regulate traffic flow, but later became a
legal product in the United States called the Federal Road Aid Act. This
federal highway funding law was first approved in the United States on June 11,
1916. This means that legal legality allows this tool to function optimally in
improving road quality and useful value for the entire community.
This traffic control device was
then modified again until it had the addition of one function, namely a yellow
light as a warning signal, which was introduced by Garret Morgan in 1916. Since
then, the color of the traffic light has become 3 variants, namely red, a stop
signal, green, a moving signal, and yellow caution symbol. This
African-American community leader, whose full name was Garret Augustus Morgan,
initially used these 3-color traffic signals in a tunnel construction disaster
rescue (1916).
This is the history of the
beginnings of the use of traffic lights, which have undergone changes in
development until they become used at road intersections and crossings in
cities in the world and also in Indonesia.
*Author of the book
"Discovering Makassar in the Alley of Time".