SIGALERT

To California’s freeway travelers, it’s a term that means trouble--a major traffic tie-up has clogged the lanes. But it’s also a term that means confusion, even to veteran traffic watchers and the CHP. So just what is a SigAlert? The definitions vary, but one thing is clear--and Loyd Sigmon knows it better than anyone else.

“It’s the question I’m asked most,” said traffic reporter Bill Keene of KNX radio. “People want to know what ‘SigAlert’ stands for.”

Loyd Sigmon knows.

He invented the SigAlert when he was general manager of Golden West Broadcasting. And, like the Earl of Sandwich, the Marquise de Pompadour and Dr. Joseph Guillotin, Sigmon’s contribution was such that his name--or at least its first syllable--has become a part of the language.

Labor Day marks the 31st anniversary of the SigAlert, the radio bulletin often issued by the California Highway Patrol to warn motorists of a major traffic tie-up--or at least those that are not already trapped in it.

“ ‘Sig’ has always been my nickname so that’s what (the late Los Angeles Police) Chief (William) Parker decided to call it,” recalled Sigmon, who has been retired for 20 years. “A lot of people think it’s short for ‘signal alert.’ Someone even told me they thought it’d been named for the fellow that runs Wickes Furniture (Sanford C. Sigoloff).”

An average of three SigAlerts are issued each weekday in Los Angeles County. But even local story buffs who know for whom the SigAlert was named admit to some confusion over just what constitutes a SigAlert.

Matter of Confusion

“In 22 years I still haven’t been able to figure out the difference between a SigAlert and a traffic advisory,” KMPC News Director Bob Steinbrinck said.

The confusion is understandable, since even the arbiter of such distinctions--the CHP--is a bit hazy on the subject.

“A traffic advisory is issued for an expected tie-up, such as a parade or a ballgame that’s coming up,” CHP spokesman Mike Maas said. “A SigAlert is issued by a CHP officer at the scene of an accident where lanes will be blocked for 30 minutes or more.”

But there’s a slight semantical detour. . . .

“Occasionally, when an officer comes across a traffic tie-up that should last less than 30 minutes, he will call that a traffic advisory,” Maas said.

“He shouldn’t do that,” he added.

Well, SigAlerts aren’t what they used to be, anyway.

Sigmon’s warning system originally enabled a police dispatcher to send out a sub-audible tone that simultaneously activated SigAlert receivers in local radio stations.

The receivers, which cost less than $1,000, automatically taped the message, flashed a red light and sounded a buzzer that alerted an engineer. By pressing a button, the engineer could air the message within a matter of seconds and would often break into a program.

“The only time we hesitated breaking in (at KMPC) was when an Angel player was at bat ‘cause Gene would have killed me,” joked Sigmon, referring to Angels owner Gene Autry, his former partner in broadcasting.

SigAlerts of that era warned listeners of such problems as flood warnings, gas leaks and missing children in addition to traffic congestion. In one case, a pharmacist who had made a potentially deadly error in writing out a prescription phoned police; the customer heard the ensuing SigAlert in time to avoid disaster.

Effects of Television

“Television was coming on strong in those days and there was a question of how popular radio would be,” Sigmon said. “We were looking for ways to increase our audience. SigAlerts really caught on. Bob Hope made jokes about them. They were mentioned in movies. They were such attention grabbers that a lot of companies wanted to sponsor them. You know: ‘And, now, so-and-so presents a SigAlert!’--but we had a rule at KMPC against that.”

One singer recorded, “Folks Songs for Freeway Drivers, or SigAlert Sing Along,” featuring such tender lyrics as, “Take an alternate route, take an alternate route, it’s a lovely day for an alternate route.”

Sigmon never commercialized his invention, preferring to work on establishing the local network with the help of the Los Angeles Police Department and the Southern California Broadcasters Assn. He was later honored with resolutions from the City Council, Board of Supervisors and governor, among others.

However, gradually, as radio stations began sending out more reporters to news events and increasing the number of traffic bulletins during rush hours, SigAlerts lost some of their dramatic appeal.

In 1969, the California Highway Patrol took over the monitoring of local freeways from the police department and the responsibility for issuing SigAlerts. The messages became confined mostly to traffic matters, the CHP’s main area of activity.

Today, none of the old SigAlert hookups are in operation. Stations either monitor CHP radio frequencies or hire traffic reporting services to get the freeway bulletins.

The Sig in SigAlert hasn’t been forgotten, though.

Honored at Dinner

Recently, the Los Angeles chapter of the National Safety Council honored Sigmon for his achievements with a dinner at the Beverly Hilton. Keene emceed and the highlight was the playing of a “SigAlerts’ Oldies But Goodies” record that included such 30-year-old standards as “Smog Alert,” “Fire Alert,” “Santa Ana Outbound” and “Santa Ana All-Clear.”

“I’m proud of the fact that the SigAlert system made a contribution,” Sigmon said the other day as he relaxed on his ranch outside Tehachapi. “I never tried to make any money off it. In fact, I lost some because I used to bet on a horse named SigAlert that never won.”

He still holds hope that the government will incorporate a similar system into its national defense program. That was his original goal when he came up with the plan as a young electronics whiz who had helped build stations in Boston and Kansas City.

Sigmon, who headed Army communications in the Europe during World War II, has been invited to Washington to discuss SigAlerts several times, most recently two years ago. But so far nothing has developed.

“Bureaucrats,” he groused on the patio of his ranch.

Then he gazed up at the blue sky and smiled.

“You know what I like about this place out here?” he said. “The air is clean . . . and there are no SigAlerts.”