Canada unveils new speed bump: optical illusion of a child

Quote :

"Officials in West Vancouver, Canada, apparently aren't satisfied with the driver-slowing properties of traditional speed bumps. On Tuesday, the town unveiled a new way to persuade motorists to ease off the gas pedal in the vicinity of the École Pauline Johnson Elementary School: a 2-D image of a child playing, creating the illusion that the approaching driver will soon blast into a child. According to Discover magazine, the pavement painting appears to rise up as the driver gets closer to it, reaching full 3-D realism at around 100 feet: "Its designers created the image to give drivers who travel at the street's recommended 18 miles per hour (30 km per hour) enough time to stop before hitting Pavement Patty -- acknowledging the spectacle before they continue to safely roll over her." You have to wonder if the designers of the "speed bump of the future" considered that drivers might become conditioned to disregard Pavement Patty and her imaginary cohorts, creating something similar to a "boy who cried wolf" effect. Couldn't such conditioning reduce drivers' caution if a real child should cross their path? Asked whether confusing and/or tricking drivers with such images might create such unintended hazards, David Dunne of the British Columbia Automobile Association Traffic Safety Foundation said that pedestrians need to be just as alert as drivers. "People tune out. It takes an attitude shift for people to change," Dunne said. "Pedestrians need an attitude shift too. They have to realize that just because they are in a crosswalk doesn't mean they are safe. In fact, most get hit while using crosswalks.""

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100908/od_yblog_upshot/canada-unveils-new-speed-bump-optical-illusions-of-children

Shit seems dangerous as hell; slam on brakes and let the idiot behind you crush you.

9/8/2010 5:46:14 PM

I don't know about anyone else, but that would just condition me to ignore small children if they ran in front of me

9/8/2010 5:48:50 PM

that or ill just get immune to seeing kids run out into the street and wont stop for them

then one day i'm going to blast a kid

9/8/2010 5:49:03 PM

Seems like a shitty idea

get people used to seeing a child in the road ... hmm

edit; fuck, beaten

[Edited on September 8, 2010 at 5:49 PM. Reason : .]

9/8/2010 5:49:21 PM

^, ^^, ^^^

9/8/2010 5:49:33 PM

This sounds like a terrible idea.


Yeah... condition people to ignore potential road hazards. U R SMRT...

[Edited on September 8, 2010 at 5:51 PM. Reason : in 10 years, I have never seen such cohesiveness on TWW ]

9/8/2010 5:50:12 PM

^,^^

9/8/2010 6:13:43 PM

This is a great idea!



Pedonecrophiliacs delight!

9/8/2010 6:17:37 PM

Quote :

"blast into a child. "

9/8/2010 9:35:41 PM

canada...

9/8/2010 9:38:57 PM

I would freak out because of his large feet

9/8/2010 9:40:51 PM

Bad idea. They tried a similar approach with child targets when I was in the academy. Then, just a few days into my first beat, I shot a kid. He was 13 years old. Ohhh, it was dark, I couldn't see him. He had a ray gun, looked real enough. You know, when you're a rookie, they can teach you everything about bein' a cop except how to live with a mistake. Anyway, I just couldn't bring myself to draw my gun on anybody again.

9/8/2010 9:41:11 PM

With regular speed bumps, how often are pedestrians getting hit (at high speeds) in parking lots and neighborhoods? I know cars get hit, but pedestrians are smarter/more cautious than drivers, right?

9/8/2010 9:46:50 PM

Quote :

"I know cars get hit, but pedestrians are smarter/more cautious than drivers, right?"

You'd be amazed by how oblivious a lot of pedestrians are. It amazes me, anyway, especially when people just walk across the road when they get their signal without even glancing at the car traffic.

At least from my experiences on campus, a lot of them just walk around expecting everything around them to automatically stop, no matter what they do. Personally, I'm at least as cautious walking as I am driving. I watch the traffic to make sure I'm not interrupting anyone's left/right turns even when the "walk" sign is up, and at non-lighted crosswalks I'll often try to give right-of-way to the huge piece of rolling metal with the engine in it that could kill me easily... some other people, not so much.

[Edited on September 8, 2010 at 10:00 PM. Reason : .]

9/8/2010 9:59:16 PM

I can see this causing a lot more accidents from trying to avoid the thing than it prevents from speeding.

9/8/2010 10:03:20 PM

^^Damn. You're right now that I think about it.

^Yup. That's precisely what I was thinking. I know the article was talking about conditioning us to ignore things in the road...but my first thought was that I'd swerve my ass off at the sight of a person in the road.

(I guess it's made so that it gets you to slow down until you realize it isn't real and keep driving... It'd still trip me out.)

[Edited on September 8, 2010 at 10:08 PM. Reason : sss]

9/8/2010 10:07:21 PM

ISWYDT Slave Famous and Sgt. Al Powell of the LAPD salutes you.

Quote :

"I don't know about anyone else, but that would just condition me to ignore small children if they ran in front of me .... that or ill just get immune to seeing kids run out into the street and wont stop for them"

I mean now, not right now, but right now.

[Edited on September 8, 2010 at 10:24 PM. Reason : Deja vu all over again]

9/8/2010 10:23:19 PM