Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
A crosswalk with a new sign at East 42nd Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan.
The British have a history of being unlucky on American shores, and in the winter of 1931, Winston S. Churchill was no exception. Alighting from a cab on Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side, Churchill, accustomed to his home country's driving conventions, looked right on the then-two way avenue when he should have looked left.
He was hit, dragged and tossed into the street by a car rushing by.
Churchill spent two weeks in the hospital. But it was not all bad: Instead of continuing on the lecture tour, said his granddaughter, Celia Sandys, he received, to his delight, a prescription for medicinal alcohol. (It was during Prohibition.) He then took a recuperative trip to the Bahamas.
Had he been visiting New York today, Churchill might have missed out on the brush with death, the cocktails and the island getaway.
On Wednesday, Janette Sadik-Khan, the commissioner of the city's Department of Transportation, announced the city's new traffic safety awareness campaign, which will feature advertising that reminds pedestrians to look both ways along with the exhortation, "LOOK!" stenciled this month along curbsides at more than 100 of New York City's most dangerous intersections.
The campaign is aimed at distracted pedestrians and drivers across the city, but the idea came from Britain, where Ms. Sadik-Kahn said she saw similar curbside signs on a trip to London last spring. "We stole their idea," she said of the London pavement signs, "and we're upping their game."
What game is being upped, exactly, was not clear on Wednesday.
Perhaps it's one of punctuation. As befitting New York City, where most crosswalk conversing is conducted at the level of a bark, the white thermoplastic lettering includes an exclamation point. London's signs use no such brusque emphasis.
Perhaps it's one of brevity. In London, the signs command you to "Look Left" or "Look Right." In New York, the directional guide can be found in the form of Cookie Monster-like irises inside the vowels that indicate the direction of oncoming traffic.
Those askance eyeballs were the first thing that Brent Wilson, 40, a geologist from Oklahoma City, noticed on Wednesday as he stood at Second Avenue and East 42nd Street, on his first visit to New York. "That's good, because being from out of town, you get a little preoccupied."
He's not alone. Ms. Sadik-Khan said around 9,200 were hurt and 41 killed in distracted driving accidents in the city in 2010, the last year for which information was available.
Tourists, dazzled by the sights and sounds of New York, may be at risk, especially if they are from countries like Japan, where driving is done on the other side of the road. Safer streets, though, may put heartthrobs like Ryan Gosling out of sideline work. Last spring, the actor made headlines when he stopped a visiting British journalist from falling victim to a Churchillian fate on Sixth Avenue.
Robin Baum, a publicist for Mr. Gosling, said the actor was not available to comment on the city's new signage.
Ms. Sadik-Kahn said a corresponding safety campaign for drivers would include advertisements emblazoned on 300 city buses and bus shelters. One ad features horizontal pictures of three pairs of eyes, each looking to a different side as if watching a tennis match. The picture reads, "Mom was right. Look before you cross the street."
It is New Yorkers, with their noses in their smartphones, not directionally confused tourists, who are the most at risk, said Romeo Marishaw, 25, a ticket agent for New York Tours who is stationed in Times Square. "I've seen them fall into potholes. I've seen them knocked down as they cross the street," he said of the multitasking pedestrians
"What we really need is an app that stops you as you get to a major intersection," he added. "That would save a lot of lives."
As for Churchill, his story might have been different had there been a curbside cautionary note, but only slightly, his granddaughter said. "He would have found one way or another of having his medicinal brandy," she said.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: September 19, 2012
An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the group at which the campaign was aimed. It is intended for distracted pedestrians and drivers, not "tourists from scores of countries where driving is done on the other side of the road, like Japan and Bhutan, as well as at distracted New Yorkers."
By MAÏA de la BAUME 20 Sep, 2012
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/nyregion/in-new-york-city-curbside-signs-to-look-both-ways.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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