You might not realise it when you’ve been trapped behind the
same red light for five minutes, but traffic lights, when
they’re timed and tuned correctly, are actually pretty good at
making traffic move. Really. Traffic lights, believe it or not,
organise fast-moving cars into groups based on the time of day
and road usage, smoothly sending them through intersections that
might otherwise net (a lot more) headaches and insurance claims.
But it took a flood of cars — the half million in 1910 that
skyrocketed to nine million 10 years later — to make us realise
that traffic, especially where roads meet, can be a dangerous
problem. It wasn’t just cars competing for the right of way —
horses and bicycles were also vying for a place on the road. At
the time, crossroads were mediated by hand waving, an attending
officer or a game of chicken. City-dwellers were the first to
seek a solution. An early traffic signal model made in Chicago
in 1910 had the words, “Stop” and “Proceed” visible to drivers.
The instructions did