Some Brain Teasers--From SigAlerts to Train Whistles

That giant sucking sound is NOT the noise of U. S. jobs that Ross Perot predicted would surf their way south of the border on the big NAFTA wave.

It is the sound of Street Smart’s brain.

As nature abhors a vacuum, Ford abhors Chevy, the and all good motorists abhor blue lights flashing in their rear-view mirrors, Street Smart abhors an unsolved mystery.

Picture this column as a New England hurricane stuffed into a turbocharged Sewer-Vac, siphoning up otherwise worthless facts by the ton and (whether you like it or not) dumping them into your Ventura County edition every Monday morning.

Why are so many wrecked cars clogging the gorges below the twisty curves of Decker Road? Because it looked really cool when Hollywood stunt drivers sent them hurtling over the edge back in the old days before environmental impact laws and crystal-clutching bunny-huggers.

What WAS Pacific Coast Highway through Malibu before becoming driveway to the stars? It was a rich old lady’s cow path. You needed her permission to pass her fence, cross her ranch and motor up the coast from Los Angeles.

What does Andersen’s Pea Soup REALLY taste like? Ummm, we’ll get back to you on that.

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Dear Street Smart:

Could you tell me just what a “SigAlert” is, where the name comes from, who created it, what qualifies for the designation, who issues those, etc.?

I continually hear this term used in broadcast traffic reports, but I have not been able to find any information as to what it all means.

Searching the World Wide Web, I came up empty. So, in that you appear to be the fountain of all knowledge as to travel around Southern California, I’m hoping you can enlighten me. Thanks.

Randy Holliday, Camarillo

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Dear Reader:

Flattery is never a bad approach, even when it overstates our supernatural abilities. (By the way, you left out X-ray vision, shape-shifting and the power to cloud men’s minds).

But we always prefer a solid question, the answer to which will inform as many readers as possible about a mystery or dilemma of the road. Yours qualifies in spades.

The SigAlert was named for Lloyd Sigmund. The 1950s Los Angeles disc jockey was the one who first began warning his automotive listeners that their morning commute was about to get ugly.

The phrase took root so firmly in SoCal car culture that the California Highway Patrol has chiseled out a technical definition:

“A SigAlert is an unplanned event which causes a closure of one lane or more for a period of 30 minutes or more,” said Sgt. Ernie Garcia of the CHP. “Most of the SigAlerts are declared by the Highway Patrol. That differentiates from a ‘traffic advisory’ . . . a PLANNED event which closes one lane or more for 30 minutes or more” and is usually called for road repairs, he says.

Once the lane blockage is moved, the CHP notifies all broadcasters listening that the SigAlert has been canceled.

Whether cars are moving at that point is another matter.

“You generally figure that for every 20 minutes of a closure, you can add another equal amount of time for traffic to clear,” Garcia said.

That’s 20 minutes give or take an unknown number of looky-loos or, as we used to call the phenomenon in Philadelphia, “gaper block.”

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Dear Street Smart:

I am peeved, baffled, miffed and definitely perplexed.

Normally, trains blow their whistles at intersections to warn cars that they are approaching (just in case people don’t see the flashing lights, hear the bells and notice those big arm thingies coming down).

This makes sense during peak daytime hours. But can you explain why it is necessary for the train to blow its whistle from Vineyard Avenue, all the way through Oxnard and out onto 5th Street toward Rose Avenue--AT 3:30 A.M.?

I live about five blocks west of Oxnard Boulevard. On April 1 and 4, several of us were awakened by a train blowing its whistle. We thought that it may be because the engineer has family here and it saves him a phone call. But occasionally I will wake to hear the clicketyclack of a train at 3:30 a.m.-ish without hearing the continuous whoop of the whistle.

Care to tackle this one?

Linda Finn, Oxnard

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Dear Reader:

We would prefer to lasso it. Football metaphors make us feel all oogy.

We were too puny and dorkish to do much more than get flattened during the zillion after-school football games inflicted on us by the neighborhood toughs (who are now, we can only hope, scratching the passing days onto their cellblock walls and pounding out that vanity plate you ordered that reads 4MYQTPI).

So we roped an expert into the act:

“It’s a federal rule in all the railroad rule books that, unless the crossing is private or there is some sort of city ordinance on a whistle ban, engineers are required to blow a certain horn pattern for that particular crossing, day or night,” said Mark Davis, spokesman for Union Pacific Railroad.

“In some communities, when you have crossings close together, that’s why it sounds like the engineer’s blowing the whistle all the way through town,” he added.

Most car-versus-train wrecks occur when idiot motorists choose to ignore the lights, bells and big arm thingies, and drive across the tracks anyway.

So as a final safeguard between these morons and their Darwinian doom, the law requires each engineer to blow a long blast, two short ones and another long one at least 20 seconds before the locomotive reaches any public crossing.

If you are losing Zs, you know who to thank.

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Dear Street Smart:

I think that the city of Thousand Oaks should put in a new traffic light between Janss Road and Avenida de Los Arboles because most traffic lights turn green when they sense that there is a car stopping. It seems that this light between Janss and Los Arboles is on a timer.

I live in the Lynnmere development. Every day, I come down Janss Road to go to school. Every day, I stop at that light. It takes forever!

I’ve asked a lot of people for their opinions, and they all agree. My teacher agrees. I’m not saying that you need to take all of your time to put in a new traffic light, just try to put a sensor in so we won’t always have to stop.

Jenna Kwiatkowski, Thousand Oaks

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Dear Reader:

Have you ever seen steam come out of two grown men’s ears?

Street Smart and Thousand Oaks Traffic Engineer Jeff Knowles desperately wanted to answer your letter. But because it did not say specifically which intersection on Janss Road suffers from SLD (slow light disease), we COULD NOT ANSWER.

And because you left your phone number off your letter (something that our grown-up readers fail to do FAR TOO OFTEN), we could not call you to clarify your question. Please write back and tell us exactly which light you are talking about.

We will be glad to find an answer for you. We love solving mysteries.

NEXT: Road entropy rules.