The annual observance of Fire Prevention Week in Garden City is Oct. 5- 11. All residents and friends are invited to attend the Annual Inspection and Open House on Sunday, Oct. 5, at noon. The program will be conducted at fire headquarters, in the employee parking field, located on the west side of village hall on Stewart Avenue.

Your fire department does an outstanding job to protect our lives and homes. Please stop by to show your support for them. I'm sure that your entire family will enjoy the program.

A chronic problem involving motorists in the village is the failure to safely yield the right of way to volunteer firefighters who are responding to a fire alarm.

Under state law, volunteer firefighters are permitted to display a flashing blue light in their vehicles as they are responding to fire emergencies. While this flashing blue light does not entitle the driver to violate any of the speed limits, traffic controls, etc., it does signify that the driver is responding to an emergency. All motorists seeing an approaching vehicle displaying this flashing light are encouraged to safely yield the right of way as they would were it an emergency vehicle displaying red flashing lights.

Residents are reminded that the New York State Vehicle and Traffic Law requires that when a school bus stops and flashes red lights, traffic approaching from either direction must stop before reaching the bus. Once stopped for a school bus, you may not go again until the red lights stop flashing or the bus driver or a traffic officer waves you on.

For our children, safety is of paramount concern. Please obey the law.

Google.com (an online Internet search program) has implemented a new feature wherein you type someone's telephone number into the search bar and hit enter and then you're given a map to their house.

Think about it - if a child, single or elderly person, anyone gives out his/her phone number, someone can actually now look it up to find out where he/she lives. The safety issues are obvious and alarming. This is not a hoax; I checked mine and it was there. MapQuest (an online Internet map program) will actually put a star on your house on your street.

In order to test whether your number is mapped, go to www.google.com and type your phone number in the search bar with dashes (for example: 516-000-0000) and hit enter.

If your phone number is not publicly listed, you should be fine. If you want to block Google from divulging your private information, click on the telephone icon next to your phone number. On the next page you'll see a link where you are allowed to remove yourself (which takes up to 48 hours).