Ancient Rome did not need to make their narrow streets "One Way" as each driver sent a runner ahead to hold up traffic at the other end of the street or alley until the chariot had passed through.
The Romans were obsessed with traffic jams. Due to increasing traffic congestion, Julius Caesar banned all wheeled vehicles, including chariots in the center of Rome during hours of daylight in 45BC. However, this resulted in a constant night-time noise from hooves and chariot wheels on the stone roads.
The first traffic law on North America was created in 1678, when authorities banned galloping horses on local streets in Newport, Rhode Island.
In 1772 Scotland became the first country to make left-hand travel a national law, applying to all city traffic. (Offenders were fined 20 shillings, a substantial amount then.)
Over 12,000 attended the premiere performance of Handel's Music For The Royal Fireworks in London in 1749, creating one of the first ever traffic jams. London Bridge was jammed solidly for three hours.
Colonel Pierrepoint was responsible for erecting London's first traffic island in Piccadilly in 1864. Stepping back to admire his handiwork he was run over and killed by a hansom cab.
The man on the Clapham omnibus has been a phrase for the ordinary man since the 1870s when Sir Charles Bowen QC, (later Lord Bowen) used the phrase as junior counsel in the Tichborne case, a celebrated impersonation legal case. The choice of the omnibus from Clapham into London may perhaps derive from an article of 1857 in the Journal of the Society of Arts about London's traffic, where the author suggests congestion has become so normal that the passenger on the roof of a Clapham omnibus can be stuck on London Bridge for half an hour without complaining.
In the early 1900s there were 100,000 horse-drawn public passenger vehicles and cabs in London, 500,000 trade vehicles and 500,000 private carriages. Traffic in other towns was so noisy, straw had to be placed on the roads to muffle the rattle of iron wheels on stone cobbles.
William Phelps Eno (June 3, 1858 – December 3, 1945) was an American businessman responsible for many of the earliest traffic laws. In 1903, he developed the first city traffic code in the world at Columbus Circle, New York City. Among the innovations credited to Eno are traffic regulations, the stop sign, the pedestrian crosswalk, the traffic circle, the one-way street, the taxi stand, and pedestrian safety islands. Ironically, William Phelps Eno never drove a car himself.
The world's worst ever traffic jam occurred in China when motor vehicles were slowed to a crawl for nine days in August 2010. Vehicles, mostly lorries bound for Beijing, were in a queue for about 100km (62 miles) because of heavy traffic, road works and breakdowns. The stalled traffic stretched between Jining in Inner Mongolia and Huai'an in Hebei province, north-west of Beijing.
The average Washington DC commuter wastes 74 hours and $1,495 per year in gas sitting in traffic.
Moscow traffic is horrendous. A a result some wealthy Muscovites have bought ambulances so that they can drive around freely during rush hour.
Researchers in Canada studied phantom traffic jams (jams that arise in the absence of any obstacles) and found they are the result of a single driver braking suddenly, causing each successive car to break to a greater degree, creating a wave of stopped or slowed traffic.
The world's largest collection of traffic cones is owned by David Morgan, who has 137 different types. He has even featured as a pin-up, in The Dull Men's Calendar.
Today, about 65% of the world's population live in countries with right-hand traffic and 35% in countries with left-hand traffic.
You're never stuck in traffic, you are traffic.
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| A Roman street in Pompeii. By Paul Vlaar |
The Romans were obsessed with traffic jams. Due to increasing traffic congestion, Julius Caesar banned all wheeled vehicles, including chariots in the center of Rome during hours of daylight in 45BC. However, this resulted in a constant night-time noise from hooves and chariot wheels on the stone roads.
The first traffic law on North America was created in 1678, when authorities banned galloping horses on local streets in Newport, Rhode Island.
In 1772 Scotland became the first country to make left-hand travel a national law, applying to all city traffic. (Offenders were fined 20 shillings, a substantial amount then.)
Over 12,000 attended the premiere performance of Handel's Music For The Royal Fireworks in London in 1749, creating one of the first ever traffic jams. London Bridge was jammed solidly for three hours.
Colonel Pierrepoint was responsible for erecting London's first traffic island in Piccadilly in 1864. Stepping back to admire his handiwork he was run over and killed by a hansom cab.
The man on the Clapham omnibus has been a phrase for the ordinary man since the 1870s when Sir Charles Bowen QC, (later Lord Bowen) used the phrase as junior counsel in the Tichborne case, a celebrated impersonation legal case. The choice of the omnibus from Clapham into London may perhaps derive from an article of 1857 in the Journal of the Society of Arts about London's traffic, where the author suggests congestion has become so normal that the passenger on the roof of a Clapham omnibus can be stuck on London Bridge for half an hour without complaining.
In the early 1900s there were 100,000 horse-drawn public passenger vehicles and cabs in London, 500,000 trade vehicles and 500,000 private carriages. Traffic in other towns was so noisy, straw had to be placed on the roads to muffle the rattle of iron wheels on stone cobbles.
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| London Bridge 1900 Wikipedia |
William Phelps Eno (June 3, 1858 – December 3, 1945) was an American businessman responsible for many of the earliest traffic laws. In 1903, he developed the first city traffic code in the world at Columbus Circle, New York City. Among the innovations credited to Eno are traffic regulations, the stop sign, the pedestrian crosswalk, the traffic circle, the one-way street, the taxi stand, and pedestrian safety islands. Ironically, William Phelps Eno never drove a car himself.
The world's worst ever traffic jam occurred in China when motor vehicles were slowed to a crawl for nine days in August 2010. Vehicles, mostly lorries bound for Beijing, were in a queue for about 100km (62 miles) because of heavy traffic, road works and breakdowns. The stalled traffic stretched between Jining in Inner Mongolia and Huai'an in Hebei province, north-west of Beijing.
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| China traffic jam. wikipedia |
The average Washington DC commuter wastes 74 hours and $1,495 per year in gas sitting in traffic.
Moscow traffic is horrendous. A a result some wealthy Muscovites have bought ambulances so that they can drive around freely during rush hour.
Researchers in Canada studied phantom traffic jams (jams that arise in the absence of any obstacles) and found they are the result of a single driver braking suddenly, causing each successive car to break to a greater degree, creating a wave of stopped or slowed traffic.
The world's largest collection of traffic cones is owned by David Morgan, who has 137 different types. He has even featured as a pin-up, in The Dull Men's Calendar.
Today, about 65% of the world's population live in countries with right-hand traffic and 35% in countries with left-hand traffic.
You're never stuck in traffic, you are traffic.
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