There does not appear to be agreement on when emergency lighting for vehicles was first invented
. One account traces the devices all the way back to ancient times, when torches were fastened to horse wagons. Many modern accounts find a Mr. Harold E. Edgerton's 1931 employment of flashing lamps to be the first instance of a stroboscope, which was actually used for the study of moving objects and not as emergency lighting. By the 1960s, police and other emergency response vehicles were being mounted with strobe lights, until nearly two decades later bar lights became preferred. This practice was so successful at drawing attention that such lights were being used in other contexts, most notably by tow trucks and other utility vehicles.