On February 17, 1941, Charles D. Scanlon filed a US patent. It wasn’t just any patent; it was a patent for a new “SAFETY MARKER.”
Patent US2333273A reads, in part:
“At present it is customary to use Small wooden tripods or larger Wooden barriers to indicate the presence of dangerous spots in the highway such as those caused by repairs, etc., but the Smaller tripods are not easily seen and are readily broken, while the larger barriers ? present a real hazard to an automobile which may accidentally strike them. Furthermore, the tripods must usually be made up for each job, while the barriers present considerable of a storage and transportation problem.”
“It is therefore a major object of my invention to provide a marker which is readily visible, yet which causes no damage to an automobile if the latter Strikes it.”
“It is another object of my invention to provide Such a marker which will return to its up right position after a glancing blow, and which may be dropped from a moving truck ? and assume an upright position.”
“It is a further object of my invention to provide a marker of this type which may be stacked so as to require a minimum of storage space, and to be easily transported….”
“Because of their resilient Construction, the markers will withstand considerable abuse, and may be used for a long length of time, carried from job to job, and easily stored. It will be seen that their use is not restricted to highway applications, but they may be used wherever a highly visible marker is needed, as for example, to indicate boundaries and runways of airplane landing fields.”
The patent was granted on November 2, 1943. The rest…. is history.
(for those of you not in Portland and/or on Reddit, someone posted a funny picture this week in /r/portland of handwritten signs left on a car. The signs read “Don’t heckin park here” and “You seen my heckin cones,” except they didn’t say heckin. It became a thing.)
Original post: https://www.instagram.com/p/B1M97OlF1Fu/