The Surprisingly Fascinating History of the Traffic Cone
The Inventor
Traffic cones were invented by Charles D. Scanlon, a painter for the Street Painting Department of the City of Los Angeles. Unimpressed with the wooden tripods and barriers traditionally used to mark damaged or freshly painted roads, Scanlon regarded these structures as easily broken, hard to see, and a hazard to passing traffic. His patent was granted in 1943.
The Original Design
Scanlon’s first design was built to keep drivers away from wet paint. Made from strips of used tire skins, it was durable but heavy. The cone shape was a deliberate choice — stable, visually hard to miss, and capable of deflecting rather than stopping vehicles that hit it. In 1947, Interstate Rubber Products Corporation began mass-producing them using molded rubber sheets.
Going Global
Traffic cones made their UK debut in 1958 when the M6 motorway opened, replacing the red lantern paraffin burners that had been used during construction. Today, an estimated 140 million traffic cones are in use worldwide.
In the United States, on May 1, 1959, Pacific Gas and Electric Company in Oakland, California became an early adopter of a formal cone policy, placing orange safety cones at the left front and rear corners of service trucks parked on the street. The policy came from a suggestion by one of their cable splicers, who received $45 for the idea. That policy remains in use today.
Why Orange?
In the 1960s, manufacturers shifted from rubber to bright orange plastic. The official shade is called Safety Orange, and the choice was no accident. Orange has a long wavelength on the visible light spectrum, making it easy to spot from a distance. It also rarely appears in natural environments — sky, grass, and trees don’t compete with it — so cones stand out rather than blend in. It’s the same logic behind life vests, hunting gear, and prison uniforms. Over time, that bright orange has become a universally understood signal to slow down.
The Duke of Wellington’s Cone
In Glasgow, Scotland, a traffic cone has sat atop the Duke of Wellington statue almost continuously since the 1980s, becoming an emblem of the city’s irreverent character. Every time the council removed it, another appeared within hours. The annual cost of removal and repairs ran into thousands of pounds. In 2013, Glasgow City Council proposed doubling the height of the pedestal to deter cone-placers — and the public backlash was swift. A Keep the Cone campaign collected tens of thousands of signatures, forcing the council to back down. Locals now regularly swap in special cones for sporting events, referendums, and holidays.
The World’s Biggest Cone Collection
A UK man named David Morgan has held the Guinness World Record for the largest traffic cone collection for over 25 years. He worked as a sales director for one of the biggest cone manufacturers, which became embroiled in a design dispute with a rival in 1986. To prove a design predated the dispute, Morgan scoured the country for different cone types — and never stopped. His collection now exceeds 500 cones across 137 distinct styles, representing roughly two thirds of every type of traffic cone ever made.