Google is celebrating 101 years of traffic lights by dedicating its doodle to the day.
The animated doodle shows cars with the letters spelling 'G-O-O-G-L-E' halting at a red traffic light and then rushing past it as it turns green.
While it was an American policeman Lester Wire, in Utah, who first developed an electric traffic light in 1912 and used red-green lights, the American Traffic Signal Company installed a traffic signal system on the corner of East 105th Street and Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio two years later on 5 August 1914.
This was not the maiden attempt to regulate the traffic. In the 19th century, gas-lit traffic signals were installed in th UK. They frequently proved ineffective because they would spontaneously explode.
Illustrator Nate Swinehart did not include the yellow light outlining that the were not introduced until later to regulate the traffic more effectively.
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