The history of the road cone

To learn the history of the road cone, we need to look back on how streets were originally formed.  

In the early 1800s, there was no local government to construct and form streets, and this was largely left to the residents to fundraise door-to-door.  

When local government was introduced from the 1850s, there was finance available to construct streets in towns. With this came the need for a safety method to warn and alert people that road construction was underway. At the time, the main way of doing this was through a person that would manage the flow of traffic with a whistle or a placard.   

After a rapid growth of motor vehicles in the late 1800s, having a person as the main method of traffic management proved to be unsafe. Soon, wooden boards and tripods were used instead of people. These weren’t easily seen by those in vehicles, and they were tricky to store and easily broken.  

In the 1940s, across the world in the city of Los Angeles, a street painter named Charles D. Scanlon designed a hollow conical marker to stop cars from driving over his wet paint.  

His objectives were to make something recognisable; while making sure it caused no damage to any vehicle if it were to make contact with it. He also wanted it to be easy to transport, stackable with minimum storage required.  

His solution? The road cone.  

The road cone has gone through many iterations, including the development of its colour.  A lot of colours were already associated with traffic, such as red for stop and ‘danger’, and yellow for waiting or slowing down. Orange proved to be the appropriate choice.  

The development of synthetic materials like rubber and PVC in the 1960s made cones more durable and flexible.  

The introduction of reflective materials in the 1980s improved visibility throughout the day and night.  

It’s safe to say that Scanlon’s original design has turned traffic management on its head as it’s estimated that now there are 140 million cones in use around the world.  

Here in New Zealand, we use 990,000 of them. 

Though road cones recently have had their fair share of controversy, it’s important to remember the origins of why they were created. Their purpose is to keep people safe and make sure all workers and people using the roads get home each night. 

At the Council, our Traffic Management Coordinators provide approval for the use of road cones under an approved Traffic Management Plan. 

Next time you pass an area with a lot of road cones in Pōneke, think about how back in the day, people would’ve been up against large wooden boards – thank goodness we’ve evolved since then!