STOP SIGNS • Although William Eno invented the stop sign, it was the Mississippi Valley Association of State Highway Departments who came up with the sign’s iconic shape. In 1923, they developed a system of street-sign shapes still used today. Their idea was that the more sides a sign has, the higher the danger level it invokes. They reasoned that the circle, which has an infinite number of sides, screamed danger, so it was used for railroad crossings. The octagon, with its eight sides, was used for stop signs, the diamond shape was for warning signs, and the rectangle and square shapes were used for informational signs. • It took a bit longer to determine the stop sign’s color. It wasn’t until 1935 that traffic engineers created the first uniform standards for the nation’s road signage. They recommended stop signs be yellow with black letters. The 1954 revision, however, called for the stop sign to be red with white letters. Before then, they could not produce a reflective material in red that would last without fading. It just was not durable. It wasn't until a suitable product was invented in the 1950s that stop signs became red. NO STOPING ALLOWED • In 1944, the newspaper in Durham, S.C. reported that a local man had been taken to traffic court for parking his car in front of a sign that said, “No Stoping.” The man pleaded not guilty. The sign should have said, “No Stopping” (with two P’s). He argued that “stoping” meant to extract ore, and he certainly had not been extracting ore. He moved that the case be dismissed. The judge agreed, and the spelling on the sign presumably was corrected.
NURSE AIDE TRAINING Valley Memorial Homes is screening candidates for the Nurse Aide Training Class held September 8 - 29, 2014 Pick up applications at either: Valley Eldercare Center, 2900 14th Ave. S., GF or 4000 Valley Square, 4000 24th Ave. S., GF valleymemorial.org
or call Monique at 701-787-7910
* APPLY NOW! * Limited Space Available
FACT • A quarter of all car accidents are rear-end collisions.