So Cal 'Sig' Alert Creator Dies [View All]

[flamingyouth]

I only found out about five years ago that a SigAlert wasn't short for "signal alert." I had no idea it was named after a real guy!

Radio Broadcaster Put the 'Sig' in Traffic Alerts

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/latimests/20040604/ts_latimes/radiobroadcasterputthesigintrafficalerts

By Roy Rivenburg Times Staff Writer

Loyd C. Sigmon, whose "SigAlert" freeway traffic jam warning system made him perhaps the most famously unknown figure in Southern California, has died. He was 95.

"People usually think it's short for 'signal alert,' " KABC traffic reporter Jorge Jarrin said Thursday on hearing of Sigmon's death. "They're surprised to find out it's from a guy's name."

Sigmon, who died of natural causes Wednesday in an assisted living facility in Bartlesville, Okla., devised his traffic alert system in 1955 when he was a co-owner of radio station KMPC and looking for ways to boost its listening audience.

Five decades later, the SigAlert tops everybody's list as one of the most distinctive aspects of L.A.'s car culture, said Matthew Roth, founding curator of the Petersen Automotive Museum and historian for the Automobile Club of Southern California.