Re: accessoire
Posted by Leeedy On 2019/1/20 19:18:35
The traffic light viewer here was an accessory that usually attached to the base of windshield trim and allowed the driver to look up at overhead traffic signals without straining to see.
Visor or no visor, A/C or no A/C... traffic light viewers were intended for use regardless of whether a car had a visor. In Detroit during the 1940s and 1950s, the stop lines on the pavement (if even painted) were usually so far forward under the common hanging traffic lights that the first driver in line could not see the signal light above his vehicle. So when the signal changed from red to green the driver could not see and thus ended frustrated with drivers behind tooting their horns. Detroit and many other cities that had dangling overhead traffic lights saved money by not having signal lights at eye level on many intersections. This was an expedient move for economy from the city's perspective, but negotiating streets as a driver was quite difficult at certain intersections without eye-level signals.
The prism of a traffic light allowed the driver to see even the highest and most awkwardly mounted dangling overhead traffic signal light.
As for the one in the photo... it has the look of a reproduction.
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