Gas-lit traffic lights were installed outside the British Parliament in London in 1868, decades before the invention of the automobile, primarily to control horse-drawn carriages and pedestrians.

A closer look

Gas-lit traffic lights were installed outside the British Parliament in London in 1868, decades before the invention of the automobile, primarily to control horse-drawn carriages and pedestrians. This brilliant piece of Victorian engineering required a police officer to manually turn a lever to switch between red and green gas lamps. Unfortunately, the system proved disastrous when a gas leak caused one of the lights to violently explode, severely injuring the officer operating it. It took another forty-four years for an American to invent the modern electric traffic light, finally allowing society to regulate intersections without the imminent threat of spontaneous detonation. We now honor this glorious legacy by collectively staring at our phones the second the light turns red and only moving when the person behind us violently leans on their horn