Ready, aim, fire!

In the 1960's, Jos Van Bedoff was in the Dutch army.  He noticed that someone had put small red dots in the barracks urinals, and that it had dramatically cut back on "misdirected flow."

Two decades later he was working in the Amsterdam airport as a maintenance man.  He thought back to those red dots and came up with an idea.  He recommended to the board of directors that each urinal get an image of a fly etched into it near the drain. It turns out that when there is something to look at, or aim at, men are better able to focus on the task, and there are less accidents.  It worked!  Spillage rates dropped by 80 percent.  That translates into major savings in maintenance costs.

Apparently there are many urinals in public places around the world with decals or etchings of different things.  Flies and bees seem to be the most common.. A few branch out into other areas, like dolphins or an American soccer goal.  There is a company named UrinalFly.com that sells decals.  They can be used in toilets, too. Some of them are glow-in-the-dark so that there is a target in the middle of the night without having to turn on a light.

The use of bees as targets in urinals is a pun: the Latin for bees is apis.

I have heard of little boys being trained with a target like Cheerios or a piece of toilet paper that they are supposed to "cut in half," but this is the first time I have heard of a target for men.  If it works, more power to the maintenance crew.

For the story on NPR, go here.

Now you've heard something interesting.