The world’s first traffic light was installed on December 10, 1868 outside the British Houses of Parliament in London by a railway engineer named J.P. Knight. Unfortunately the lamp, which ran on gas, exploded on January 2, 1869, either injuring or killing the policeman operating it. The modern electric traffic light was invented by Lester Wire, an American policeman, in 1912 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The design was simple, consisting of a green light for go and a red light for stop. Since then there have been other interesting ideas.

Timers in traffic lights, especially for crosswalks, are common in cities all over the world, however there are always different ways to warn pedestrians and drivers alike when a change is coming, besides the standard numerical countdown. Here is a rendering of the Eko traffic light, designed by Damjan Stankovic, which ticks off red squares until the light turns green.

As he told The Daily Mail:

Since you know exactly how long you have to wait you can sit back and clear your head for a while. No need to keep your foot on the gas. Relax.
When you think about it, you don’t need this information counted in seconds, you just need to see the speed of the progress bar to give you an estimate of the time.