Radio 4 is currently repeating a short series of 5 programmes about the history behind various aspects of the traffic control devices we usually take for granted on our roads. Each programme is 15 mintues long at 15:45 this week, Monday through to Friday. I've heard some of them before, and I think they're very interesting, and well presented by Joe Kerr.
Monday's programme covered the design of our current road signs in the early 1960's, and featured one of the designers of many of the signs you're well used to seeing today. Tuesday's programme covered the history of roundabouts. Wednesday's program covered the history of road markings. Thursday will cover pedestrian crossings and the 'green man'. Friday finishes off with the road hump.
The most recent program can be listened to again using the BBC's Listen Again service -- the link is:
Listen Again retains the last 7 day's programs, but unfortunately this link is rewritten each day as this is a daily series, so it only allows access to the most recent broadcast. However, with some probing around, I found the earlier ones are still available, but there isn't a link on the BBC website pointing to them.
Monday: rtsp:--rmv8.bbc.net.uk-radio4-1545mon.ra or rtsp:--rmv7.bbc.net.uk-radio4-1545mon.ra
Tuesday: rtsp:--rmv7.bbc.net.uk-radio4-1545tue.ra or rtsp:--rmv8.bbc.net.uk-radio4-1545tue.ra
Committee ruling on obections about uk.rec.gps 5496BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- The Committee has received correspondence from six people; four were objecting, one was explicitly not objecting, and one did not state either way. Since there were fewer than six...
and you can probably work the rest out for yourself. You can't listen to a program before it's been broadcast (you'll just hear what was on that same time last week if you try). You might have to enter these rtsp URL's directly into RealAudio rather than your browser; I'm not sure all browsers will know what to do with them.
-- Andrew Gabriel
