Here is a conversation starter for your next holiday party: Is "Sig Alert" an acronym that means A) Stay In the Garage, B) Sense Impending Grief, C) Know that a freeway Situation is Impossibly Grueling, or D) Does "Sig Alert" stand for "signal alert"?
The correct answer is "none of the above."
A Sig Alert, which is a warning broadcast by radio stations telling of unusual or hazardous traffic conditions, was named after the man who first coined the term, the late Loyd C. Sigmon.
Back in the '50s Sigmon was an executive at KMPC, a Southern California radio station.
In an effort to boost ratings for his station, Sigmon came up with a brilliant idea. He called the LAPD and asked them to telephone the radio station every time there was a significant traffic jam so that KMPC could broadcast the information to its listeners.
The LAPD informed Sigmon that their officers were far too busy doing things like catching bad guys and trying to keep order in a county of a few million people to stop and call a radio station every time there was a traffic tie-up. So Sigmon came up with a better plan. He proposed that the radio station could install a receiver that would be linked directly to the police.
Whenever a significant accident occurred, a signal could be sent from the police station that would allow the radio engineer to tap directly into police broadcasts of the traffic problem.
William H. Parker, the chief of police at the time, finally acquiesced and allowed the receiver to be set up, but only on the condition that all radio stations that were interested in broadcasting the alerts had access to them.
So while Sigmon did not gain the competitive advantage that he had hoped to achieve for his radio station, his system was successfully implemented in 1955. A skeptical Chief Parker was quoted as saying, "We're going to name this damn thing `Sig Alert."'
Sig Alerts, which are unique to Southern California, are now transmitted electronically through computer networks and are administered by the California Highway Patrol. The CHP will launch a Sig Alert if there is any unplanned event that causes the closing of one lane of traffic for 30 minutes or more, as opposed to a planned event like road construction.
The next time an overturned big rig or three-car collision ruins your freeway drive and pushes your stress levels to the boiling point, you might just want to head down to the pier in Santa Monica where you can slam your car into another car without having to worry about causing a traffic jam.
The Pacific Park bumper car ride is aptly named "The Sig Alert."
Michelle Groh-Gordy is the owner of InterActive! Traffic School Online at www.trafficinteractive.com , and writes a syndicated weekly column on driving for the publications of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group.
