When New Yorkers are waiting to board a train , most of their vigour is focalise on elbowing their elbow room into the car as fast as possible . But if they were to take their time , they might notice something peculiar : after pulling into the station , a subway system conductor will always point his or her fingerbreadth out the window . This is n’t something director do for fun or out of superstitious notion : The insistent gesture is a safety precaution , and when you follow their digit you ’ll see they ’re always pointing at the same affair .
midway down every subway platform in New York City there ’s a smutty - and - white - striped cake of woodwind instrument that ’s string up in a very important topographic point . When this indication add-in , or " zebra panel , " is line up perfectly with the conductor ’s window , that evidence them it ’s safe to start the doors . Any further back and the seat of the train could be mystify in the tunnel — same goes for the front end if it stops too far past the board .
Because opening the doors without a platform to pace onto is such a serious concern , conductors are required to aim at the sign every time to show that they ’ve hold on at the right spot . Four years ago , an MTA music director explained the subprogram in aReddit AMA :
Zebra table first get down appearing in subway post around World War I. In earlier systems , one music director was positioned between every two cars to function their door separately . raw technology made it possible to open all the door on a string at once , and the MTA trade to having one director in the center of each railroad train . The striped boards have been used as a ready to hand reference point ever since , but it was n’t until 1996 that the MTA began requiring conductors to point at them .
This rule did n’t originate in New York , but on the other side of the globe in Japan . Japanese train conductor expend pointing to know many different factors throughout the journey , including speed indicator and approaching wayside signals . But when you see conductor create the motion in New York , they ’re almost always pointing to the same object . As the pranksters in the TV below discovered a few years ago , this tier of consistency can be exploit to have some cockamamie play .
All figure of speech good manners of YouTube .
