Kidnapping alert signs criticized

 

Date: 2002-08-04

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.

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