September 18, 1947
Los Angeles
Two days before he died in February, attorney Carelton R. Bainbridge, 63, rewrote his will to include a very unusual bequest. His entire estate of $30,000 was left in the trust of his friend Charles Connelley for the care of Bainbridge's beloved 6-year-old Irish setter dogs, Pat and Gunner.
In court today to challenge Bainbridge's wishes are several two-legged hounds from the dead man's past, including his brother Sherman, who publishes a pension movement magazine, and Sherman's daughter Marjorie. Also on the scene is Mrs. Christine Halstead Bainbridge, the woman Bainbridge wed (and deserted) in 1926. She has a 1925 Bainbridge will in which she plays a featured role.
Sherman Bainbridge's attorney Harold A. Fendler intends to show that Carelton Banbridge was not of sound mind when he made the 1947 will. As evidence, he claims that the dead man regularly took Pat and Gunner to the movies, where he would ask their opinions on the show. He believed the dogs could talk, and also read them bedtime stories.
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Ordinance Ordered
for Right Turns
The City Council yesterday instructed the city attorney to draft an ordinance which when finally adopted will permit motorists to make right turns against a red signal at intersections where no signpost is erected specifically prohibiting such a turn. At present right turns are permitted only where there are signs approving such movement.
The action of the council will be in conformity with a law passed by the last Legislature to go into effect Friday.
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Adopted across the country and lampooned by Woody Allen, Los Angeles’ right turn on a red light was born in obscurity. Although the city used traffic semaphores (mechanical devices with metal arms reading “STOP” and “GO” that swung out of the signal—just like in the old cartoons and the opening of "Double Indemnity") instead of lights, the right turn on red was in effect as early as 1939, when the City Council sought to ban them.
The state Legislature banned the right turn on red in 1945, but because cities were allowed to post exceptions, three survived: Mission Road at Macy Street and Sunset Boulevard at Castellar Street (now Hill Street), both downtown; and at Ventura and Lankershim Boulevards in the Valley.
Restored in 1947, the right turn on red remains the birthright of all L.A. motorists.
Bonus factoids: The city experimented with synchronized signals in 1922 to ease traffic. The length of a stop was cut from 45 seconds to 30.
“The traffic situation is Los Angeles’ single biggest problem,” The Times said—in 1924.
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