Sorry Ranjeet Singh, But You’re Not The First ‘Pop Cop’ Using Dance Moves To Control Traffic

That honour goes to Owen Darcy of the St Louis police department.

Dacey kept the St. Louis’s North Broadway and East Grand intersection at rush hour moving almost as slickly as himself for over three decades from the 1960s to the 1980s.

When asked at the time for the reason behind his innovative traffic control methods, Dacey stated ‘I have to make traffic flow. I have to use motions people understand and make them move right now. If it comes out like I’m doing the twist, I can’t help that. It’s the only way to direct traffic down here.’

His novel way of controlling traffic was immortalised in the short film Pop Cop by Don Pietromonaco, and achieved international fame after it was used as part of the legendary Hanna Barbera children’s TV show ‘The Banana Splits‘. This spawned a host of imitators (particularly in the USA), but Dacey was the original.

Perhaps most remarkable of all is that despite directing traffic back in the days petrol had enough lead in it to make roof tiles, he lived another twenty one years after his retirement.