Traffic lights colors: How do they come up to choose Red, Yellow, Green?

@abednego7 (1060)
Philippines
January 24, 2007 9:19am CST
I wonder why the inventor of traffic lights picked Red for "stop", Yellow for "Ready", and Green for "Go". I'm thinking if he based it on something, why he did not choose Blue instead of Green? Since the primary colors consist of Red, Yellow, and Blue.
4 responses
• Ireland
24 Jan 07
Now you have me curious. I have just searched the internet and I cannot find anything to say why green was chosen instead of blue. The sequence of the traffic lights is not the same here in Ireland, as it is for other countries. Red means stop, green means go, and orange means get ready to stop. The orange doesn't light up to tell us to get ready to go, it just goes from red to green. Now apart from wondering why green was chosen instead of blue, I am now wondering why the Irish don't have the orange signal to get ready to go.
2 people like this
@abednego7 (1060)
• Philippines
25 Jan 07
I followed the link that provided by kacana and there I found the answer. It said they speculate that the basis of using 3 identified colors that now we see on traffic lights is color symbolism that evoke different emotions to human. Red generally symbolizes danger or warning, making it good choice for "stop". Green is calming to us, probably because it is prolific in nature and a sign of health and abundance, therefore its good for "go". While yellow on the other hand is associated with warmth, happiness, and sun. Despite this connotation, it was chosen to symbolize "caution". Perhaps it contrasts well with green and red, and is highly visible without being to harsh on the eye of motorists. The article doesn't state why other countries like Ireland has a color orange on their stop lights.
1 person likes this
@kacana (539)
• Bulgaria
24 Jan 07
I found this on yahoo: http://ask.yahoo.com/20031023.html
1 person likes this
@abednego7 (1060)
• Philippines
25 Jan 07
Thanks for the link. Now I've got enough information why traffic lights have that three colors specifically. Thanks bro.
@kacana (539)
• Bulgaria
24 Jan 07
I don't know about the colors, but i know that in the begining there were just red and green, later the yellow was added.
1 person likes this
@abednego7 (1060)
• Philippines
24 Jan 07
Well okey then at least you add some information about my query. Thanks for your sharing. I guess they add yellow because when the green lights flash the motorist still not ready to move so it takes additional time so they yellow light will be the reminder that they should be ready to go because the next light will flash is green.
@kacana (539)
• Bulgaria
24 Jan 07
May be connected with color-blinded people.
@abednego7 (1060)
• Philippines
24 Jan 07
Can you add some information on how it can be connected to color-blinded people. Since if you are color blind then there's no use to add another color cause I wont add your recognition to the first one.