Traffic cones are still one of the most recognized and practical traffic control tools available.
You’ll find them very helpful in keeping hazards at bay. Use them to control traffic flow, warn of hazards and dangerous situations, mark off restricted areas, and support warming lights or signage.
Traffic cones are an American invention. They were first developed in 1943 by Charles Scanlon, a painter for the Los Angeles Streets Department, to keep cars away from wet paint.
There was such a time in the 1940s, as roads and automobile traffic spread across the nation. Engineers needed a device to keep traffic merging safely and to protect those building roads.
Enter one Charles D. Scanlon, a Los Angeles street department painter. In 1940, he designed a “safety marker” to keep cars away from painted lines on city roads, according to the Traffic Safety Store. Three years later, Scanlon was granted a patent for the Scanlon Safety Marker.
“It is … a major object of my invention to provide a marker which is readily visible, yet which causes no damage to the automobile if the latter strikes it,” Scanlon wrote in his patent filing. “It is another object of my invention to provide that such a marker which will return to its upright position after a glancing blow, and which may be dropped from a moving truck and assume an upright position.”
Traffic cones restrict traffic to one lane of the tree-lined roadway.
Scanlon and a partner, Rodney Taylor, initially used tire scraps but went on to use other materials for their emerging device.
Before Scanlon’s bright-orange idea, traffic markers were wooden barriers that could damage vehicles and were hard to move and store. Cones could be easily stacked and stored.
At the time, barriers to protect fresh road markings were made of wood or even concrete! Scanlon’s idea was to make a flexible device that would spring back if run over and not cause damage to vehicles. His first version was made by joining strips cut from old tires.
In 1943 he patented a ‘Safety Marker’ which became the first conical road marker that had the recognizable features of today’s traffic cones; made from a resilient material, with a heavy base so it could remain upright and rebound from impact, and a top hole and base feet for easy stacking.
By the 1950s road cones were increasingly used to direct traffic and protect workers on US and UK roads. Today, traffic cones can be seen virtually everywhere—construction sites, streets, parking areas, even corridors, and hallways. And government agencies, including here in New Zealand, publish precise specifications for their manufacture and use.
By 1947, Interstate Rubber Products Corp. began manufacturing traffic cones of molded rubber sheets. This year marks the 70th anniversary of traffic cones being mass-produced.
Road cones are now so well known they have become part of popular culture. We are a traffic cones supplier, please contact us if you need them!
