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Show U.N. Takes the Road Signs Cn Journey Round the Globe A humble, unsung sentinel beside be-side the highways of the earth the road sign suddenly has become a world traveler. In France, Chile, Turkey, India and Southern Rhodesia, the yellow-and-black curlicues, curves and angles of American highway markers mark-ers have sprouted to guide foreign motorists through a series of United Nations safety tests. At the same time, U. S. drivers are being taken over short sections of roads in Ohio, New York, Virginia Vir-ginia and Minnesota marked temporarily tem-porarily by the bright-colored, cartoonlike car-toonlike signs of Europe's international inter-national highways. A puffing locomotive in a red triangle is the European-style warning of railroad crossings unprotected unpro-tected by gates. Silhouettes of children chil-dren signify a school or playground ahead. The outline of a careening automobile means "Slow Down-Slippery Down-Slippery Road," while a sign that looks like a camel's back clearly says "Bump!" In the few decades since highspeed high-speed travel by automobile began to make over the world, signs have become vital to the safety of millions. America, land of a single language, is sown with signs reading read-ing "Stop," "Dangerous Curve," or the famous "Stop, Look and Listen." But in Europe, touring motorists have long been confused and confounded con-founded by signs which give obviously ob-viously important Information in an incomprehensible language. Other signs give warnings in several sev-eral languages and are so complicated com-plicated they cannot be read without coming to a full stop. In 1926, realizing the need for a universal sign language, an International Inter-national meeting in Paris drew up a code of symbols and pictures Which all countries could use. In 1949, these signs became the basis for a new standardization of signs by a United Nations commission. |