DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Canada unveils new speed bumps...children!

Ok, so this is definitely strange. The picture is too large to post to go to the story to view it.

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?

[What is an optical illusion? How does it work?]

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."

As for drivers who become can't process optical illusions, Dunne argued that they have no business on the road in the first place.

"It's a static image," he said. "If a driver can't respond to this appropriately, that person shouldn't be driving, and that's a whole different problem."

Interesting idea until somebody who is totally unaware of it is driving along not paying attention and looks up and sees it, then freaks out and swerves to avoid it and kills a couple kids on the sidewalk....

no, no, no... what could go wrong with playing mind games on people operating two ton missiles?

This will work out JUST FINE.

What a freaking horrible idea. Embarrassed that this idea came out of my country.

Besides, we already have speed deterrents in place in residential neighbourhoods..... Street hockey.

Game On!!!

Is it just me or is "Pavement Patty" just about the worst name possible? It brings to mind a couple images, none of them good.

I would have gone with Asphalt Ann.

I'm pretty sure Pavement Patty is the nickname of the beautiful blonde bigfoot roaming around North Carolina.

Road Rash Randi wasn't even considered?

BY FAR, the dumbest idea I've ever seen

WE are creatures of habit. people will adapt to this and one of these days, a real kid will be in the street and they'll run right over them..

wow....

Street Savvy Sarah? Corner Candice? Pregnant woman decal, Baby Bump Brandi.

Nope .... but neither was ^%$##&*('d up Frannie .... but I can see why in that case .......

I did think that Roadkill Rhonda had a shot .......

I've seen an effective speed reducer, the width of the road periodically is narrowed so that a car must drive slow enough to avoid hitting a full size curb head on.

I was hopeing Canada would unveil a new Flag
a new state, I mean Province
or a new name for a Province.

We've been robbed that they stopped doing things like that 200 years ago.

What if they just carved up some indiscriminate part of the Rockies and made a new state called " Terminator"?

Quote:

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a new state, I mean Province
or a new name for a Province.

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Nunavut....1999.