Kidnapping alert signs criticized
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Date: 2002-08-04
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Hundreds of miles from the scene of the kidnapping, traffic slowed on freeways as the electronic sign boards flashed an unfamiliar message: AMBER ALERT . . . CHILD ABDUCTION . . . WHI FORD BRONCO . . . LIC -- 1AIZ962.
By the next day the two kidnapped California girls had been rescued. The AMBER
system (America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response) makes existing systems
for broadcasting public emergencies such as earthquakes and power shortages
available to police for publicizing missing children cases. The ability for
kidnappers to get far away quickly on the freeway was a key point in including
freeway message boards, but during the recent kidnapping, many motorists complained
they couldn't read the signs fast enough to get the license plate number, and
some complained the alerts were dangerously distracting and clogged traffic.
Read the Mercury
News article 
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