He may have left Tacoma and made it out to sea, but USCG Barque Eagle Bos’n Keith Raisch wants your brain cells to remain sharp.
He has a pop quiz for you:

Q: “What is it that is maritime in nature, that every person of driving age deals with daily?”

A: “Traffic lights. The lights that are used at sea are red to port, green to starboard. White was pretty much on the stern, or dead ahead, when power came on,” he said.

“The English Channel was the busiest waterway in the world,” he explained.

“Sailing ships at night had to figure out a way at night of determining who got to go. It started out with a white light to let you know I was there, then evolved to the red and green on the two sides. At the same time on land, we were riding horses across countrysides and open fields and did not need traffic patterns. When the technology caught on ashore, the sailors brought their rules ashore. Now you have traffic lights, in red, green and amber.”

Thanks, Prof. Bos’n!