Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 192, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 August 1915 — New York Adopts Startling Safety First Scheme [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

New York Adopts Startling Safety First Scheme

NEW YORK. —’’Safety First” is a grand motto, but sometimes it produces somewhat startling effects. Especially true is this in the well-meant efforts to persuade the public that the place to cross the street is the crossing and not in the middle of the block,

about a quarter of an inch in front of an automobile. At various danger points there have appeared whitewashed lines from curb to curb, giving the inter section of the streets an appearance somewhat reminiscent of a tennis court. These were supposed to guide pedestrians across in safety. Ths public did not respond quickly enough to this educational measure and so it has been decided to do something that

would hit the eye most effectively. It has been accomplished. Early-morning pedestrians crossing Fifth avenue and Thirty-fourth street and other places where the scheme was put into effect were startled at seeing a series of “gory footsteps” 'across all four crossings. It looked as though some band of murderers had been running a race around the four corners of the intersection of the streets. By noon the traffic policeman had explained about 500,000 times that the footprints did not mean that there had been any especially sanguinary doings thereabouts, but that the foot prints were onlv marked out in red paint to show the course which should be taken by pedestrians. Outside the path of red footprints there are lines to show where automobiles must halt and on each sidewalk opposite the crossings is the legend painted in tall, red letters, “cross here.”