Willy Whistle Television Spot: Parked Cars ~ 1982 US Department of Transportation (DOT)

more at http://quickfound.net/

'This television spot features Willy Whistle as he told kids to look for cars from the curb before stepping into the street.'

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curb

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

A curb (American English, Canadian English), or kerb (Australian English, British English, New Zealand English; see spelling differences), is the edge where a raised sidewalk (pavement in British English; pavement or footpath in Australian English) or road median/central reservation meets a street or other roadway...

Although curbs have been used throughout modern history, and indeed were present in ancient Pompeii, their widespread construction and use only began in the 18th century, as a part of the various movements towards city beautification that were attempted in the period.

A series of Paving Acts in the 18th century, especially the 1766 Paving and Lighting Act, authorized the City of London Corporation to create footways along the streets of London, pave them with Purbeck stone (the thoroughfare in the middle was generally cobblestone) and raise them above street level with curbs forming the separation. Previously, small wooden bollards had been put up to demarcate the area of the street reserved for pedestrian use. The Corporation was also made responsible for the regular upkeep of the roads, including their cleaning and repair, for which they charged a tax from 1766.

By the late 18th century, this method of separating pedestrians from carriageways had largely been supplanted by the use of curbs. With the introduction of macadam roads in the early 19th-century, curbs became ubiquitous in the streets of London...

In low-speed environments, curbs are effective at channeling motor vehicle traffic and can provide some redirective capacity for low-speed impacts.

On higher speed roads, the main function of curbs is to provide drainage and are mostly used in areas of a bridge approach or other locations with erosion risk.

A high-speed vehicle that hits a curb may actually turn towards the sidewalk, rather than be directed away from it.  A vehicle that strikes a curb can be tripped into a rollover crash or vaulted into the air. The vehicle could be vaulted over a traffic barrier into the object the barrier is intended to shield. This is a reason why they are rarely used on rural or high speed roads. Where curb is used with a traffic barrier, the barrier should either be close to or well behind the curb, to reduce the chances of a vehicle going over the barrier.

Depending on the area and the distance between the travel lane and the edge of pavement, an edge line can be used to indicate the outside (shoulder) edge of the road. Retroreflective road marking material can also be applied to the curb itself to make it more conspicuous.

Curbs are also meant to inform pedestrians to stop or slow down as they prepare to cross roadways. For example, cultural context and behavioral norms of a society may affect safety in that people are more likely to cross on a red light while standing alone than waiting with others at the curb...