Have you ever wondered why traffic lights have a standard color scheme, with red on top, yellow (or amber) in the center, and green on the bottom. The answer hearkens back to the early days of rail travel, when workers needed a way to warn trains that there was danger ahead. They chose red to mean “stop!” because of its allusions to blood. Green was originally the symbol for caution, and a clear, or white, light meant it was safe to proceed. The problem with this arrangement is that engineers frequently mistook the light of the moon or stars for the “all clear” signal. This led to tragic derailments and train collisions. So the arrangement was changed, with yellow representing caution and green meaning “go.” And that, my friends, is how it all began.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Jun 2013 01:45:01 +0000
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