Friday Thoughts

Happy Friday!

This video is making the rounds today on LinkedIn, with the question posed: “Known or Unknown Hazard?”.

Some comments point to the contractors, others to the driver, others say both.

Without seeing all the details leading up to this incident, it’s hard to believe that the entire lane of traffic was not blocked off.

And this has me thinking about the traffic cone.

The traffic cone was invented here in Los Angeles, in 1940.

The Bureau of Street Traffic Engineering began painting lanes within the city limits in the 1930’s.

At the time, when there was a traffic incident, or if a lane needed to be repainted, workers would erect wooded barricades and lay sandbags in the road to redirect traffic.

As you can image, this was not very successful.

Enter Charles Scanlan, who worked in the Bureau.

Tired of traffic snarls, accidents, and worker injuries while painting roads, Scanlan looked for a way to improve safety and reduce accidents. As someone on the job site, near moving traffic, he was well aware of the hazards of road work.

Scanlan thought a device, brightly painted, flexible, and stackable would not only bring attention to a lane closure, but would make it easier for workers to block lanes when necessary. Traffic may actually improve during a lane closure! (Hahaha!)

The patent was issued in 1943.

There are claims that the traffic cone had already been invented in the UK, but that story is for another day.

Today, there is probably a traffic cone sitting on every road in the country. It’s so common, sometimes it’s hard to see!

Now wrapped with retroreflective tape by 3M $MMM ( ▲ 0.88% ) and others, it allows a company like United Rentals $URI ( ▲ 0.99% ) , or municipalities and public safety departments, to safely mark off a section of the road as the first line of defense in traffic safety.

It’s a powerful little tool for safety.

So, the next time you see a traffic cone, don’t think “Oh crap, traffic’s about to get bad”, think “Amazing Innovation”.

Stay in touch 

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Stay safe out there!