Some years ago, I scanned one of the pictures I took in London in December 1994, a streetscape. I forget where exactly. Something inspired me to scan it in black and white, which captures the December gloom all the better.

Not that London’s a particularly gloomy place, in December or any other time. But old movies on long-ago Saturday afternoons conditioned me to think of old London in foggy black and white, and I caught something of that in the image. Maybe not London in 1994, but 1934.

Looking at the image again, I noticed LOOK RIGHT painted on the edge of the road. Sound advice, I’m sure. When did that message start being painted to warn visitors whose first instinct is to look the wrong way?

A 1991 NYT article mentions the paintings in the context of pedestrian deaths in London, but it only says, “this city has always been tough on foreign pedestrians, who can often be observed at street corners wearing the slightly startled look of deer edging alongside a freeway. It was for them, mostly, that London officials years ago began painting reminders along curbs suggesting that pedestrians ‘look left’ or ‘look right’ before venturing into the street.”

Perhaps for the influx of U.S. soldiers during WWII. That would be my guess. Of course, the hazard is present for Britons visiting our side of the Atlantic as well. After all, Winston Churchill almost bought the farm in New York in 1931 because he failed to look the right (correct) way crossing a street.