The History Of The Traffic Light Is A Lot More Complicated Than You Think

A stoplight is seen in front of the dome of the US Capitol as a government shut down looms in Washington, DC, on September 28, 2023.Photo: Mandel NGAN / AFP (Getty Images)

Traffic lights are both common and controversial. From a city that only allowed green lights for drivers staying inside the speed limit, to the ethics of turning right on red, there are a ton of ways these simple devices affect our lives. But how did it come to be?

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We’ve discussed the history of the traffic light here on Jalopnik before, but never in this granular detail of this new video from my favorite bow-tied YouTube presenter Lancer Geiger. Geiger presents history in his best PBS special voice on his YouTube channel, the History Guy.

Traffic Lights: A History

You may have heard about the first electric traffic light debuted at the corner of Euclid Avenue and East 105th Street in Cleveland, Ohio in 1914, but that’s not really the start of the traffic light’s story.

“It may surprise you to learn that the first traffic lights pre-date cars by many decades,” THG says in his video. And you know what? I was surprised! The video traces traffic control all the way back to its origins to a dude hired to stand on a bridge and direct traffic in 1669 London. The colors of the lights? That traces back to a parliamentary order in 1831 about the colors of running lights for boats.

From there, it was a steady march of progress; a standardization of traffic police to lights control the giant, automatically timed orange dongles familiar to us today. The entire video is pretty fascinating. Take a look here.