8 Objects I Only Encountered After Moving to America | ROADSIDE EDITION

the lack of headrest on the driver's side of the car makes me so nervous, that is SO dangerous

I beg you to put the headrest back on that driver seat. I've been to so many crashes as a firefighter, and believe me - that headrest is a major safety feature to keep your head from snapping back and causing major neck and spinal damage. It is not just there for comfort - it works with other safety features to prevent major injury.

Okay Lawrence, transportation engineer here. The vertical part of the TRAFFIC SIGNAL is called the POLE. The metal bit that sticks out horizontally that has the SIGNAL HEADS is called a MAST ARM. And don't worry, the signal pole and foundation is designed to withstand the wind load of most storms typical of the area they are located. Not all storms, obviously, as sometimes really unexpectedly bad ones blow through, but that's pretty unusual. I see more signal pole come down when vehicles hit the pole, and even that's not common! And please, please, please, PLEASE get that head rest (or head restraint) back in for your wife. From somebody who's had the WORST luck with car crashes (I've had 2 totaled on me in under a year, 2 in 2017 a month a part from each other, and my story will be in a NYT article in the future), you want all the safety protections you can get! I've suffered bad whiplash and a concussion from my most recent crash that would have been so much worse without the head rest. And the crash that broke 2 bones last year which had my airbag deploy, I don't even want to know how much worse that would have been without the restraint in place. And no, not one of these crashes were my fault.

"Traffic light" and "stoplight" to me are equivalent and interchangeable (although I typically use stoplight). I've never heard an adult say "stop-and-go light" and if I had, they'd probably have gotten a pretty weird look from me 😂 it'd be cute coming from a child though!

Fire hydrants are also directly responsible for the National Institute of Standards (and Technology). Back in the early 1900s, there was a major city wide fire in Baltimore. Fire Engines from Philadelphia and Washington showed up to help. Unfortunately, their hoses didn't fit Baltimore's fire hydrants. Afterwards, the US Government set up the NIS to standardize such things as fire hydrants to prevent this sort of problem in the future.

You wouldn't want hydlrants underground in the midwest because of snow. The things would be buried and you wouldn't be able to get to them.

The color of the hydrant tells firefighters how much water flow they can get from it. The yellow one you showed with the blue top should flow in excess of 1500 GPM. Also, you won't have it where you are because of street plows, but in the south, in the middle of the lane will be a blue reflective marker, that tells where the hydrant is and on what side of the road.

Funny story about fire hydrants. My grandma recalls one winter when there was a lot of snow (which is not the usual for piedmont region NC) the local kids kept building a snowman but some teens kept running over it with their car. So the children built it again this time over top of the fire hydrant. You can guess the rest. Lol

The person you heard say that a stoplight was a stop and go light is probably the only person who calls traffic signals that. I’ve never heard it or read it before.

It snows more with higher accumulation in the United States. It’s crucial that firefighters have immediate access to water without the need to search or dig the snow off of the lid to access an underground valve in the event of a fire during winter.

Retired fire suppression lieutenant here. Technically, non-fire department persons are not supposed to paint over fire hydrants . It’s illegal in some places. The top part’s color (bonnet area) is sometimes painted a specific color to let the fire department personnel know what the pressure rating is for that particular hydrant. Black-399 gpm or less Red-400-499 gpm Orange-500-999 gpm Green-1000-1400 gpm Blue-1500 gpm or more. We used to put down in the roadway a blue reflector to let the fire engineer/driver know where the hydrant was located. I’ve see out west a long thin pole with an orange flag on the end mark the location in the snow, also. Fun fact: During the country’s bicentennial, lots of hydrants were painted red-white-blue, even as red-white-blue people!

Back in the 1970s, there was a fad going around in the US of people painting fire hydrants to look like little people. I remember reading a funny in Reader's Digest about a couple of hydrants in front of a couple of churches (one on each side of the road). Someone had painted one to look like a nun, the other to look like a monk. A few days later, someone had hung a sign on the monk that read "I'm not a monk. I'm a fryer hydrant" 🤣

Have you ever noticed blue road reflectors? They actually signify that there's a fire hydrant next to them! Any time you see one, try looking for the other!

Driving around with no head rest in your modern car, of which head rests are considered part of the safety features to reduce physical injury, with YouTube evidence of it no less, gives your insurance company an easy out of a claim if you're in a collision and a head/neck injury happens, regardless of who's fault it is. Don't give them a reason to deny you medical coverage in the event of a collision.

oh god, i havent thought about the RCA dome in so long! thanks for making this hoosier nostalgia

The head "rest" in vehicles is a safety device more properly referred to as a head restraint. Apparently it's called that in the UK as well.

I think Tara might be able to tolerate the headrest if she uses a lumbar support or thin cushion up the back of the seat. They’re uncomfortable, especially with a bun in your hair but headrests are to prevent whiplash and in very bad cases, internal decapitation. Really hope you put the other headrest back in the car Take care!

Laurence, I don't know if you've noticed an interesting fact about strip malls, but around here (North Alabama), any small to medium sized strip mall is guaranteed to have three things: a hair salon, a nail salon, and a Chinese restaurant. Otherwise it's not a proper strip mall, lol!!

I've never used the phrase "strip mall" and instead have always used "shopping center". When I moved to Illinois I was delighted to see so many water towers, every town seems to have their own. They remind me of Ferris Bueller's Day off when "Save Ferris" gets written on one.

There is an indicator on the roads (at least in Indiana) to tell you where the hydrants are located as well. If you look carefully at the reflective lights in the middle of the road occasionally you'll come across a blue one in the sea of yellow/orange. That blue light helps our fire departments find hidden hydrants. Especially useful when they're completely covered by snow. Blue=water.